The Future of Work: In Conclusion

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

Ultimately, I don't know of a better argument against Humanoid Robots (and robotics in general) than the familiar and sound rationale, “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.” 

But maybe the unique quality of the Humanoid Robot is in how easy it is to endow this variety of technology with our ancient and deeply personal Utopian fantasies of a life without menial labor. It’s as though we’re all collectively in the desert and we see a life-giving oasis at what seems to be an attainable distance. (What could be better than to toss off an unbearable burden and race toward our glorious renewal -- and assign all things undesirable to an infinitely dutiful servant?) 

However, this fantasy, like most fantasies, fails to take into account so many important things. Not least of which is that these machines are being built for market-scale reasons, not mythological ones. And it's much more likely that this variety of machine will be more proficient at getting your rent money -- or subduing riots -- than it will be at doing your daily chores.

Of course, even if these machines WERE being built to fulfill our fantasies, and even if that oasis on the horizon was in fact not a mirage -- and was exactly what our desperate eyes thought it to be -- we’d be unilaterally forsaking every last sliver of conservative wisdom humankind has ever determined as we threw out our plans and went mindlessly full bore towards it. 

As I search for analogies in this regard, I frequently consider the vaccine. The vaccine is arguably in the top five (if not top one) of all technological achievements of humanity. And what is it? It is the harnessing of the -- quite literal -- greatest destroyer of humans (microscopic organisms). Even after centuries of repeated refining of this technology, there still seem to be new technical challenges. And, most crucially, we're still a long ways off from resolving the principal cultural concern of vaccines -- namely, are the people who administer these vaccines trustworthy? (I'm not saying they are or are not -- but this is still inarguably the cultural debate.)

As we enter into a new and peculiar age in which our creations can virtually eliminate every environmental pressure present in our biological and psychological development, we need to proceed with caution into this virtual domain – and understand that where technology can be created at rapid speeds, culture, however, takes centuries -- if not millennia -- to form.