By George Pór and originally published on Facebook
The check-in question that I had to answer in order to join “The Future of Work” group on Facebook was this:
Do you think your job will be automated in the next 5-10 years?
I hope most “jobs” WILL be automated and give rise to gainful deployment and blossoming of people’s talents and aspirations.
Ty Sopko Hi George, I would really appreciate if you could share your perspective a bit on this.
In the past, my understanding is that automation has typically led to displacement of meaningful, but not necessarily skilled, employment. (Workers that could find themselves in “flow” states created intrinsic enjoyment in otherwise meaningless work.)
The line sold to the public is that “automation will free us to do more meaningful things,” but the collision with human nature has resulted mostly in boredom, e.g.: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/11/…strial-revolution/
What do you know that I don’t that suggests this time be different?
Victor Vorski Yes, however some technologies such a internet, electricity, robotisation but especially human ones such as capital, democracy, nation state do seem to have a life of their own which puts them outside of the direction of human control.
I am now working my way through “Hyperobjects” by Tim Morton and he also speaks there to this idea that some of these things which we have produced are beyond our control, or even comprehension…
I definitely feel that there are some things which have become so powerful they in-fact start driving the socio-economic values of society rather than being controlled by them.
Ty Sopko George, thanks for the reply. I always like reading your posts. 🙂
I appreciate your optimism but struggle to reconcile it with my interpretation of the current socioeconomic climate. It is currently ignoring those like you and me that would ask for a humane deployment. The driver, as always, is greed.
My concerns stem from surveillance capitalism quickly becoming the “killer app” for a large portion of tech: your awareness is not required for your manipulation. By definition, it does not self-regulate and will subversively push you into a path of highest profitability for the owner of the tech. Profitability and exploitation rarely align with our shared goal of world-bettering action.
Technology may be neutral, but the tech-human system is not. On a spectrum, some technologies are easily abused by contemporary thinking and its inertia
Ty Sopko Robin, if you have the time, I would encourage you to read the article I posted in a comment above. We all want mindful work, but there is actually great benefit to “mindless” work if one approaches it correctly. Mindful work alone does not categorically create a complete individual.
Greener grass is closer in mirror than it appears.
but nurture the synergy of their best capability.
Featured Image/graphic link added by Enlivening Edge Magazine.
