The Future of Work: Possible Solutions

(The following is a continuation of an update / article shared last week. It was written without ChatGPT, or other tools.)

To begin, I think a dedicated ‘brainstorm’ session around ‘Humanoid Robots’ could yield many, if not all, of the solutions needed for preventing catastrophe with these tools. However, there's an added challenge: these machines aren't hypothetical, but actual -- and any idea devised to address their potential danger must be as active and automatic as the robots stand to become. This to say, the solutions we implement, just like the robots, won't be able to take 'days off.'

Nevertheless, here are some possible ways to improve our integration of these tools:

ACCURATE TERMINOLOGY

As I’ve argued in my article "Artificial Intelligence and Culture," humanity has yet to find the right terminology for our advanced creations. ‘Artificial Intelligence,’ I'd say is a bad term primarily because it is insufficiently complicated as well is a misleading term. Similarly, I think it’s wholly incorrect to say that Humanoid Robots (or any robot in general) performs ‘work.’ Robots ‘work’ in the same way that ‘submarines swim,’ to borrow the analogy by computer pioneer Alan Turing.

It would help substantially to hold as common knowledge that robots do not (or cannot) perform work – rather they are tools that can be used to eliminate the amount of work that humans have to perform.  

UNDERSTANDING THE WORK PHENOMENON

Those who create Humanoid Robots (and robots in general) take for granted that a task has to be understood in total detail – because if it isn't, then aspects of the task will be neglected and the task won’t be performed. Perhaps, then, a solution is for us to learn from these engineers and ask ourselves, “what are the essential parts of work – and specifically the parts that humankind has benefited from, but may see atrophy in the age where robots are reducing the amount of work we have to do?”

In Section 2 of this article (“the Work Phenomenon”) I offered a scenario of a loading dock worker. I attempted to suggest that there was more to this worker’s job then merely unloading a truck. Based upon this generic example, I would say that the essential parts of work might fall in these three categories:

• A Symbolic Category: Being in a certain place at a certain time; and continually choosing to be in that place at that time.
• A Productive Category: Performing the primary objective of the work.
• A Relationship Category: Socializing with team and management in a way that promotes long term stability in the group. 

In summary, if there is no ‘Symbolic’ part (and if a person isn’t at a particular time and place) then the worker won’t be able to perform any task; if there is no ‘Productive’ part (and if a person doesn’t perform their essential task) then there’s no point for the work; and if there is no ‘Relationship’ part (and if a person cannot interact subtly or overtly as is needed with the people in a place and time) then they cannot participate in the fulfillment of the work. 

GAMES & SYMBOLIC COMMITMENT

‘Games’ seem to exercise all aspects of work (meeting in shared place and time, executing a task, and engaging in complex social interaction). Thus it’s fair to assume that more involvement in more elaborate games would help supplement humanity’s reducing need to work. However, this is hardly conclusive: we likely don’t want to end up living in a giant, unending ‘game show,’ and neither should we choose to spend our entire lives in the human’s version of a Hamster Wheel.  

In all cases, I think we may be served to especially emphasize the importance of the so-called ‘Symbolic’ aspect of work (described above), and reinforce cultural importance of agreeing to be with one another in particular places and times as well holding true to our word.