I can remember my grandfather mocking the position this guy finishes with, that more automation will free "us" to do other things. His stories intimated that this is how automation was sold repeatedly in the past, but that in reality the "productivity gains" were nothing but profits for the corporations. This guy seems to exclude the principle of "for-profit" enterprises pocketing the benefits of technology at the expense of the workers, while his analogy of social technology (the mobile phone) being introduced into the lives of "hunter-gatherer" communities such as subsistence fishing communities in India does not parallel the corporatised reality of global industry and labour. I call bullshit. In fact, I call discrimination against humans by governments that will tax and punish human workers for being employed, while giving a free ride for non-human workers. When governments tax the income of human workers for their role in the value-adding chain of production but don't tax the role of machines in the same role of adding value, they are discriminating against us and encouraging the replacement of people by machines. Hopefully this guy is not suggesting his utopian future is one in which humans live on welfare supported by a state/corporate union that through its replacement of human labour with automation technologies meets the needs and whims of the people. But then again, he's nothing but a life-long academic by his own admission, so who knows what distorted views of reality he may have. Interesting and thought provoking talk though. Those TED talks are great, thanks for posting.
Thanks for that Gino, I really wanted to discuss these kinds of issues. There's so much in these 2 sentences I don't know if I can fully address it. Yes, there are opportunities to make a lot of money. I think you have correctlt idenitified the corporations as the problem. Of course in reality there is no such thing as a corporation, it's just a group of people working together. The fact that we give them all these properties such as personhood, limited liability etc is the problem imho. I'm assuming this is tongue-in-cheek? Don't know what this guy is thinking but I'll give you my (generalised) take. First, I think that technological evolution is inevitable. You can try to slow things down, which is what I believe our governments are currently doing, but you can't stop it. Second, we are currently in the middle of a revolution more profound than the industrial revolution was to the previously mostly agrarian society. Because of our lifespans and experience it is often quite hard to pull back and look at the big scheme of things. What to us seems normal, would seem a very strange way to live to the vast majority of humans that have lived on this planet throughout history. What we think of as a sort of nice, stable way of living is in fact, when you pull back and look at the last few hundred years and put in perspective, you'll realise that it is in reality just a brief transitory period between the end of the industrial revolution and the onset of the information revolution (or whatever you want to call it). Will people lose their livelihoods? Yes. But those who resist change always ultimately get swept aside by it. I think the govt is being used to try to prevent that but imo, technology marches on anyway, and when the change can no longer be resisted it becomes all the more jarring. Do I wish we lived in a world where change wasn't so rapid? Sometimes. I don't like to see anyone suffer, but I think overall it has been good for the world. Few people today would want to back to the world pre-industrial revolution. I believe that in a 100 year's time, no will want to go back to the world we currently inhabit. The lives that we live today, which we think are relatively prosperous will seem quite primitive and backward to these future denizens.
You can't take the technological revolution on its own, I don't believe, but need to consider it also in terms of the transformation in global governance, enforcement and control that is going on in parallel. This is also enabled by the application of these new technologies, albeit more in the negative spectrum of application, perhaps. This guy did not discuss or even allude to the use of drones and automated killing machines enabling presidents the personal power to identify and participate in the killing of people from the comfort of his office. He didn't talk about the ubiquitous nature of surveillance enabled by the less socially appealing applications of micro & nano technologies or other, decidedly nasty and completely objectionable application. Nor did he identify the despotic and totalitarian tendencies of control freaks and megalomaniacs that are empowered by these technologies. He provided a very upbeat, myopic perspective of an imagined, goldilocks future where everything is just right and technology is the enabling force for global benevolence and goodwill. My perspective is that of my grandfather, it is bullshit. The multiplying force of technology is only beneficial to the degree the people that use it are free and benevolent. Think of a vector towards humanity's emancipation being multiplied by the beneficial use of technology. Very nice, I agree and basically the line that that career academic was pushing. Now image the malevolent use of technology magnifying that malevolence and instead of accelerating our liberation it speeds our path into complete subservience. This was what was ignored by that guy and to which alternative path my grandfather had an early insight. And my observation about taxation wasn't tongue in check. I really do wonder why the value-adding of human labour is discriminated against in favour of mechanical automation. If one accepts the necessity of government and their right to tax the income of human labour, why shouldn't they tax robots and other automata? It would be a relatively simple matter to assign a unit of human work, calculate the multiplying effects of the technology in use and apply a direct tax on the productivity of the machine in line with the income tax they would gain from the equivalent number of human workers displaced. That way they could maintain the tax revenue in the face of greater automation and at least maintain service and standards. The fact that they don't, says a lot about their intention with the income tax and why the amplifying effect of technology will not necessarily be beneficial for the human condition.
We're in complete agreement here. This is a great frustration I have with many academics as well. The vast majority aren't willing to go all the way in asking these questions at this point in time, but then again, it is a malaise which infects society as a whole at the moment. Few question the ideas of government. You even have some, who are quite good at what they do, extolling the virtues of government but who haven't really thought things through when you listen to them. In saying that around late 2007/early 2008 I looked at the trends in society and was extremely disturbed and depressed. I saw government using technology against us, ostensibly to "protect us". I saw the trajectory of technology and came to the depressing conclusion that we were headed for a 1984 type world. Now I think that if enough people speak up we can avoid it. Some might think this a bit melodramatic but it really isn't. My view of government is that, even if you accept it as a necessity, which I obviously don't, as it currently functions it is designed for a 20th century society. If you accept govt, you still have to acknowledge that the current form is/ and will be essentially unworkable not far into the future. And that the level of power is going to increase and do we really want to let small numbers of people develop this power by default, just through the increase in technology. I saw another Ted video, though didn't watch it myself, where a guy was talking about apparently developing a new type of government for the 21st century, essentially equating govt to a computer operating system. I think it went along the lines of Direct Democracy. But my question to DD advocates is, how is that different to mob rule?
Even in mob rule, the victim might strike a chord with the mobster and be spared for whatever reason. With DD though it would seem like 'perfect justice'.? . . But what about the stolen wealth of peoples and generations? Print money out of thin air and build justice and rule justly. yeah right! . . .
