Humans Need Not Apply
Here the video from the channel of CGP Grey (his channel is very informative and entertaining – so subscribe).
Now to the Video:
The overall gist of the video is that technology is out there and is coming to get us. Especially because technology is becoming better, cheaper, smarter and all of that faster than ever before and we whimsical little humans will be out competed by machines everywhere, which in the end will leave 40%+ of our workforce without a job.
Sounds good?
The Horse Analogy
The pure horses lost all there jobs to fossil fuel engine driven vehicles. If only one could have prevented that from happening. Horses would still happily slave away behind the plows, pulling cards or amuse us in horse races. Nice little happy horses. Instead you see them unshaved bagging for change at every street corner.
Sorry for the sarcasm, I couldn’t avoid it.
This analogy is bullsh…, I mean a big pile of horse manure. The reason why it is not applicable for humans is because horses live in a man-made world. Whereas humans live in their own world, created by themselves, which is a huge difference.
In Planet of the Apes humans would be in the same situations as the horses in our world. Excess horses like excess humans, Soylent Green anyone. Horses are basically at our mercy and have no say whatsoever concerning their lives, at least for now. We however are the creators of our own world. We make the rules, all of them. It doesn’t feel that way, does it?
Ruler of the World
Getting up in the morning, stuck in traffic going to a dead-end job, slaving away all day to just get by. All day boxed in. It is absolutely true that there are forces out there dictating our lives. Absolutely true. But they are all man-made. At the end all these forces we don’t have any control over, which push us around benefit a human. They are not benefitting humanity or all humans. They are benefiting “a human” or a group of humans.
What that means is that we have created a world where it is possible to create inequality between humans. When these technologies really come to fruition and play out there potential, they will exacerbate this inequality within humanity. Which is a real reason for concern. What to do?
Jobs? Jobs anybody?
Time to quote a science fiction author.
(Nothing is better than to put ones own opinions in the mouth of someone else.)
Arthur C. Clarke said: “Any teacher that can be replaced by a machine should be.”
Which I would like to expand to: any job that could be done by a machine should be.
As the video pointed out quiet nicely that is every job. Astonishingly white-collar jobs are even easier to replace than blue-collar jobs, because it takes only some sort of software implementation, which becomes more capable and powerful with Moore’s law. I think, however, we are not at the stage where every job will be replaced by a machine, just yet.
<Intermission>
What I want for proof that we arrived at the machine age is that machines build without any guidance by humans an improved versions of themselves. I want to see a 3D-printer who is capable of printing a better 3D-printer then itself. What I would also allow as a proof is a molecular assembler, basically a 3D-printer controlling the positioning and the state of atoms. This machine in theory would be capable of producing anything. No improvement from there. Maybe speed though?
</Intermission>
What than?
What should we do in the face of technology-induced exacerbation of human inequality? Well, end the inequality I guess?
The inequality is man-made!
To quote Arthur C. Clarke again: “One cannot have superior science and inferior morals. The combination is unstable and self-destroying.“
What that means is that our morals have to grow with our capabilities and technologies. We have to expand our compassion to all of humanity and realize that it is morally unacceptable to condemn humans to an inhuman live.
As it seems I am already one of them. I am a seemingly unemployable biochemist with a PhD in behavioral neuroscience. Who now started this blog to change the future and that is in a nutshell what this blog is all about.
PS (concerning the title). Does that mean I can stop now? Applying I mean.
PPS. How dare you ridicule poetry? It would be a wonderful society.
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