Robots revisited - a "Workless" future

Now that driverless cars are a reality and the US Air Force has pilotless planes – not just drones or UAVs – but unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs), I’m sure the armament industries around the world will soon produce driverless tanks, driverless self-propelled automatic radar controlled self loading artillery, armed robots to replace foot soldiers and who knows what else is on the artificial intelligence (AI) robotic horizon.

Anything to save the cost of people – soldiers needing to be trained, uniformed, fed, housed, then possibly injured or killed.

But then we need to ask the question – who will these robots be trying to kill?

This robot and AI problem applies also, of course, to commerce and industry. Many of the jobs that American politicians want to bring back to America will never eventuate. The days of the old unskilled, labour intensive jobs are numbered. We are told that within 10-20 years many, if not most, of the unskilled laboring will be gone. As an example there is a giant 3D printer in China that can “print out ten houses on a block of land in 24 hours - the houses were built in Shanghai by WinSun Decoration Design Engineering. Each house was 10 metres wide (about 33ft) and 6.6 metres high (about 20ft) using a mix of cement and construction waste, with walls being constructed layer by layer, like making a cake.” This construction can be seen at work on a YouTube video and refers only to the walls. The roof is a separate construction by men. Also on YouTube is a video of the Tiger Stone Paving Robot that lays a road at four times the speed of a team of human workers. (These quotes are from book called ‘Why the Future is Workless’ by Tim Dunlop). I’ve seen the videos – amazing!

So the world is changing – what was will no longer be – the status quo has evaporated.

So what is the solution? Certainly some “service” jobs will still need individuals – cleaning, cooking, nursing, teaching, child-care and such like – but many others will be automated or performed by robots.

Just consider the impact on the poor and middle class in the USA. Even now, with the globalization of work, there are more workers than there is work for them to do (i.e. the “rust belt” in the USA). In a report by Carl B Frey and Michael A Osborne from the Oxford Martin School at Oxford University (full report is available free on line - Google it) they examined 702 jobs in the USA and determined that 47% are vulnerable to automation within the next twenty years. The main finding is that “algorithms for big data are now rapidly entering domains reliant upon pattern recognition and can readily substitute for labour in a wide range of non-routine cognitive tasks.”

A similar conclusion was arrived at by MIT scholars, Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee in their research paper, “The Second Machine Age”.

Basically these reports say that the only “safe” jobs will be those that require social intelligence – the ability to interact with other humans in an intuitive way; those that require creativity – a deep understanding of what humans want from their creative tasks to be effective; and, surprisingly, the ability to manipulate objects in unstructured and cluttered environments (i.e cleaning jobs).

Many, if not most politicians, and the “ruling class”, may be horrified at the obvious solution – give everyone, and I mean everyone – employed or unemployed – give everyone a “Universal Basic Income”. This universal basic income is already in place in the city of Utrecht (Netherlands) and is being actively considered by the Governments of Finland, Switzerland, India, Canada, New Zealand and, as mentioned, the Netherlands.

A world that no longer revolves around full time paid employment, one underpinned by a universal basic income, opens up the possibility of a life of, for instance, more civic, social and community engagements – using our skills for personal satisfaction and free exchange rather than channeling them into the need to earn income or profit.

This is no joke! If a large percentage of people in the USA – or any country for that matter – are unemployed and are unable to see any possibility of future employment, what are they supposed to do?

Anger and frustration will consume many people, especially when they are made aware that currently (2016) the inequality gap between the wages of the typical worker and that of the typical CEO is 200 times. That is right  - the typical CEO in the USA earns 200 times the wage of the average worker!! In Japan it is 16 times.

To me it is a no brainer that people – millions of people – will swamp their governments for assistance. If all Governments adapt and are proactive they will plan for this eventuality and the only option is to pay everyone, repeat, everyone a “Universal Basic Income”.

Many right wing politicians and those in the “ruling class” will fight such a policy but they will be outnumbered by the millions of unemployed, destitute, poor, frustrated and angry people clamoring at their doors, clamoring for assistance.  

This is the future  - and it’s coming soon – get used to it.

America

Below is copied, from a book of Max Ehrmann’s poems, a piece called “America” that I believe should resonate with the many wonderful people in the USA. But remember that this was written early last century – I believe sometime before 1910. But what has changed?

America

Lincoln, rise up from out thy tomb today,

Thou lover of the lives of common men,

America has work for thee again.

Here women want in sight of wealth’s display,

Man grinds his brother down and holds sway

As in the times of bloody lash and den,

Save now the flesh is white, not black as then.

In toiling holes young girls grow old, decay.

Though thou art dead, could but thy soul return

In one who loved his fellow-men as thou;

Instead of greed that we might justice learn,

Love character in place of gold as now,

Write far across our native land’s sweet soil,

“Here none shall live upon another’s toil!”

The Eyes Have it.

It is always the eyes – blue, brown, hazel or green. Generally the first thing anyone does when meeting another is to make contact with their eyes. A great deal can be gleaned from eye contact. Anger; coldness or indifference; surprise; longing; stubbornness; pleading; sadness; fear; hatred; love – the whole gambit of human emotions are expressed in and through the eyes.

Eyes are a window into the soul.

The one that always affects me is eyes that express hurt. Eyes that ask “what did you do that for – that hurt me”? Not just with fellow humans but with our fellow beings. Such an expression always cuts me to the quick and stays with me for a very long time.

I can remember the expression in the eyes of a cat that, for reasons I need not explain, I had to put down even though it was healthy and quite young. It looked over its shoulder with an expression of “why is this happening – why are you doing this to me?” I took the cowards way out and did not stay to witness the end – I just couldn’t!

Likewise when I have hurt someone close to me, particularly family members – it always affects me deeply. Particularly if there are tears. Their look of disbelief and hurt, telling me that I have (possibly and hopefully just temporarily) weakened the bond of trust between us always pulls me up short. It makes me reflect on aspects of myself that are sometimes quite unpleasant – matters relating to my ego and who I think I am or who I believe myself to be. And make me ask myself the question – “Why did I do or say that?”

Generally such moments are brought about by my thoughtlessness and not with “malice aforethought”. I really do try never to hurt anyone – obviously I don’t always succeed! 

What the word Sacrifice really means.

We have been hearing quite a lot about the word “sacrifice” recently – particularly in relation to US Presidential candidate Donald Trump and his "dispute" with the Khan family.

I am no Latin scholar but as I understand it the word Sacrifice derives from the Latin Sacrificium, which in turn has its root in the  Latin sacrificus (performing priestly functions or sacrifices), which combined the concepts sacra (sacred things) and facere (to do or perform).

Now, to my mind the parents of the late US Army Captain Humayun Khan, who sacrificed his life to save the men he commanded, are quite right in their statement that Trump has sacrificed nothing.

I cannot conceive that building large structures, employing “thousands of people” and spending millions of dollars equates in any shape or form with the term “sacrifice”.

So there we have it – Sacrifice actually means to make Sacred.

Have we become commodities in an undemocratic world?

In a society with an economic environment that accepts “head hunters” (somewhat unpleasant connotations attach to this term), that accepts “down-sizing” or restructuring as normal in the pursuit of the all important monetary “bottom-line”; a society where government’s, of all persuasions, are dictated to by big business; a society which encourages its citizens to sell themselves to the highest bidder in the job market in pursuit of ever more desirable material possessions, diminishes its citizens to the point where many are left confused with no real notion of their self worth. In short they have become commodities. This has its ramifications in emotional and psychological outcomes.

The result is that many people today live and think only in terms of limited self-interest. They believe that they are acting on behalf of their best interests when actually their main efforts are directed to money and what is termed “success” (however this is defined). In the process of seeking what they are told is best for them, they deceive themselves about the fact that their fundamental human potentialities remain unfulfilled and by accepting such a deception they lose sight of their core values, which remain unchangeable. This, in many instances, leads to lack of life harmony, to stress and anxiety – conditions very prevalent in today’s work place.  

Now and here is the rub, under the influence of the market, the concept of who “I think I am”, has shifted to meaning “I am as you desire me” – in other words a commodity. So divorced are many people from their core values as human beings, that as sellers of a commodity (what they believe the job market wants) they feel separated from what they want to sell. To be sure, they are interested in what they believe themselves to be; immensely interested in their success in the “market”, but they are the managers, the employers, the sellers – and the commodity. Such people are now divorced from themselves and their value as human beings.

Nowadays it is difficult for many people to draw a line between what they call “me” and what is called “mine”. People feel and act about certain things that they consider to be theirs (or what they believe makes them who they are) very much as they feel and act about themselves. Their fame, their children, the work they do, may be as dear to them as are their bodies, and arouse the same emotions and feelings and the same defences if attacked. In its widest possible sense, however, a person’s real identity or core values (what makes them a human being), is more than the sum total of all they may call “theirs”, more than their body, and their skills and abilities, their clothes and their house, their partner or spouse and children, their ancestors and friends, their reputation and accomplishments, their land and motor cars and yacht, their investment portfolio and bank account. These things give them the same emotions of pride and success. If these grow and prosper, people feel “successful”, if they dwindle or are lost, people feel unhappy and diminished – not necessarily to the same degree for each thing, but in much the same way for all.

The increasing worship of “success” (again, however this is defined) has generally failed to satisfy the primal urge for individuals to be who they really are. There are an increasing number of people to whom everything they are doing seems to lack fulfilment. They are still under the spell of the slogans which preach faith in the secular paradise of success and glamour. But doubt, that necessary condition for all progress, has begun to work on them and has made them ready to ask what their real self-interest as human beings really is. They have become dissatisfied with being a commodity.

This is now considered “normal” – which is the real tragedy.

Anyone in this situation needs to come to terms with who they really are. There is a difference between a person’s REAL interests and those imposed on them by any given society. Some people may find it difficult to experience life in terms of their own emotions, thoughts and sense of proportion, rather than in terms of the experiences that they are supposed to have, as dictated by the expectations of the “market” and society. In other words they are required to fit in with what the market wants or what the “competition” is providing. They are squeezed into a “shape” that would not be of their own choosing, just to comply with market expectations.

Anything which directs a person into a channel not of their natural inclination; any constriction to personal growth and the development of their full potential as human beings will give rise to stress and anxiety – unfortunately very common in the world today.