Destination: Emancipation

One scenario of a world in which humans are freed from work, thought—and perhaps even parenthood.

by Andrew Linnell

For many people today, work is a four-letter word. If they didn’t have to go to work, they wouldn’t. As we humans have evolved, we’ve continually sought ways to lessen our work-burden. We’ve employed slaves, animals, and tools to perform the work we’d otherwise be tasked to do. And we’ve embraced the development of technology not only to make our work more productive but to free us from physical labor.

Different eras have prospered from technological advances in different ways. The factories of the Industrial Revolution began where water power was readily available, but in the 1800s, the steam engine led to the locomotive. Soon the railroads opened non-waterfront regions to commerce, and with coal, location emancipation became a reality.

As the industrial age progressed, we sought to emancipate ourselves from nature. The gods-filled world of nature became reduced to what was measurable, to raw-materials and resources for commerce. Eventually homes and workplaces were freed of climate variations: In winter and summer it was 73 degrees year-round. Weather had little effect on daily tasks and strawberries could be eaten in January.

Now comes our age — the Information Age, the Age of Artificial Intelligence (AI). In past ages technology emancipated us from much physical labor and discomfort; now technology is emancipating us from mental labor. All forms of counting, accounting, calculating, risk analysis, and all thought forms that deal with numbers, weights, and measures, and with the inanimate world are types of mental labor from which AI is freeing us.

The Rise of the PA

Much as computers, then laptops, were given to employees to increase their productivity beginning in the late 1900s, in this new age, Personal AI/robotic assistants (PA) will begin to participate with employees in their work. Any given job has many tasks. As most repetitive, non-creative tasks are given over to AI/robotics, employees will be freed to be more productive. PAs will, for example, be able to attend and record your meetings (the need to be physically present will diminish — meetings can move to virtual reality, or you and your PA could use an avatar at the meeting site); handle all your scheduling; use speech recognition to write for you; look up data, analyze, and generate reports; manage your business and personal finances; and maintain your personal brand.

PAs will identify and manage your relationship with your clients and colleagues, for example, whispering to you their personal information, their most recent activities, and their current mood. What today takes a full department of workers will, in this future, be done by one person who has at their command several PAs. Traditional professional jobs will disappear as quickly as most blue collar ones are doing even now.

Are any jobs safe? One might assume that the jobs of teachers, priests, and artists can not be done by AI/robotics, but work in the cultural sphere and the helping professions will also be greatly affected. It’s not much of a stretch to imagine, for example, a mother-to-be at a baby shower who is gifted with a Parent’s Assistant.

This type of PA will be able to change diapers, feed the baby, and generally watch over and keep the baby safe. It will be endowed with camera and microphone and Wi-Fi so that either parent can always check in on things. As the child grows, the PA will also develop, and be able to put the toddler to bed, tell it a story, sing it a lullaby, and get the child dressed the next morning. No more sleepless nights for mom and dad. Replacing parents with a machine nanny will be intensely debated but by version 3.0, as with any technology adoption trend, most of society will opt for them.

Later, the PA will become the child’s teacher. Reading, writing, and arithmetic and all the other lessons once learned inside the brick and mortar schoolhouse will now be done at home. Departments of Education will laud these PAs because they will give every child an equal education. Children will learn at their own pace. It will be deemed that the great goals of education have finally been realized. Debates about what to teach and why may continue, but with the money saved on schools and teachers, governments will easily be able to afford to buy every child its own PA.

Technology in general and PAs in particular will be seamlessly integrated into every adult’s life. They’ll optimize our environments, monitor every activity, diagnose our moods and, if necessary, connect us to to the great Shrink-in-the-Cloud. Life with a PA will be regimented for nearly everyone. Those who cannot fit into the PA-structured life will be seen as unfit, or as misfits, or perhaps even as ill, and treated with the help they need to adjust. PAs will keep our families in touch and our admirers in awe, ensure our safety, entertain and educate us, keep track of our bottom-line, and manage our life’s various inventories.

The Transition to the Future

With the change in the job market, education may no longer even be needed as preparation for work. New jobs will be created while traditional jobs disappear, and over several decades, a different economy may emerge with a very different workforce and tasks to perform. But, during such a transition and perhaps for much longer, a large percentage of the population will be unemployed. Some countries will fare better than others. How will the world society, the national, and the local respond to the massive loss of jobs?

Perhaps societies will implement a Universal Basic Income (UBI), giving every citizen enough to meet the basic requirements for life. To fund UBI, governments might tax each robot (that replaces a human) at a rate such as sixty percent of the former employee’s wages, or tax the profits in a graduated fashion so that the company can realize higher profits but still contribute to the basic income fund for the displaced workers. There will be strong debates between business-freedom and economic-equality as this painful transition progresses. As in past transitions, many will be unemployed while a small minority will become exceedingly rich. There likely will be a shift from democracy to oligarchy.

But where are all these changes leading? What are we transitioning to? Once freed from the long hours of farm labor, humanity changed with the Industrial Revolution. More time for introspection, education, exploration, and creativity expanded our perspectives, abilities, and understanding in many ways. As technology continues to offer emancipation from both physical and mental labor, what will a world of (seemingly) content unemployed people do? Will such freed-up-humans seek greater creative expression in the arts, music, philosophy, science? Seek to develop essentially human capabilities? Invest more in new technology?

Often one hears, “the benefits outweigh the risks” in regards to potentially dangerous new technology. And human history shows we do learn from our mistakes, although often it seems we need to learn “the hard way.” The coming emancipation will change what humans do, and allow humanity to let go of labors that were once necessary for them to perform. That emancipation can teach us not only what we are and wish to be, but it will teach us what we are not, what is not part of our essential being, what remains when we are freed from tasks and actions that AI performs. And if this results in an awakening to new human concepts, capacities, and relationships, to new methods of health care, to new creative occupations, new sciences, new arts, even new religions, then humanity may experience a glorious flourishing.

Andrew Linnell is a computer scientist and anthroposophist with a writing habit.

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