Big Tech’s Plan To Make Work ‘Optional’ Is Evil: While Innovations in Robotic Automation May Create New and Exciting Economic Opportunities, a World Without Work is Something None of Us Should Desire

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Big Tech’s Plan To Make Work ‘Optional’ Is Evil:

While innovations in robotic automation may create new and exciting economic opportunities, a world without work is something none of us should desire.

One of the most common themes across dystopian literature and cinema is the peril of a world where people no longer pursue meaningful work. From the Blade Runner series to Brave New World to The Giver, these imagined futures are places where technological advancements, narcotics, and mindless entertainment have rendered humanity distracted, dull, and morally depleted. So why are tech moguls so eager to create such a scary world?

In March Amazon, Nvidia, and Atoms all initiated new efforts into advanced robotics and “physical automation,” which, according to Atoms, intends to “transform industry” by developing robots capable of performing labor-intensive work. Earlier this year Elon Musk pivoted Tesla to prioritize its new production line of humanoids, called Optimus. “My prediction is that work will be optional. It’ll be like playing sports or a video game or something like that,” Musk declared at the recent U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum. Ali Gohar, CHRO at Software Finder, has similarly predicted that “some high-skill knowledge workers will have the option to stop working thanks to automation and AI-driven software ecosystems.”

While innovations in robotic automation may create new and exciting economic opportunities, a world without work is something none of us should desire.

Robotic Automation Has Real Promise

Musk predicts a future within a few decades in which millions of robots will enter the workforce (and he’s certainly putting his money where his mouth is, publicly stating that he aims to derive 80 percent of Tesla’s value from Optimus robots). These robots won’t just be doing work in factories on the assembly line — Musk in March suggested that there would be more Optimus robots trained as surgeons than human surgeons in 10 years. That sounds outlandishly optimistic, though over the last few decades we have all learned not to underestimate the world’s wealthiest entrepreneur.

We may grimace at the thought of performing tasks we have always assumed would be done by well-trained human experts, but it’s worth remembering that automation over the last century has significantly improved the lives of laborers and created a remarkable amount of wealth, while often making life safer.

As a recent Heritage Foundation paper observed, “technology increases labor productivity, which increases investment and wages, which increases demand, which increases employment.” Modern digital advancements have enabled millions of Americans to do at least some of their work from home (or anywhere they like) while still using cutting-edge technology, and AI carries at least the potential to further this trend. Technological innovations inevitably disrupt, but they also create new opportunities that can (and often do) improve man’s lot.

But Nothing Can Replace Fulfilling Work

The problem with robotic automation (and the broader AI movement) is not the technological developments themselves — which, frankly, are only an extension of the calculator, which we are all grateful for — but that they are being developed and promoted by those who have such an impoverished anthropology. To hope for a future in which work is “optional” is deeply misguided, because labor, properly understood, is one of the things that defines us as humans. A future bereft of labor will not be a utopia, but a nightmare that undermines our humanity.

Regardless of one’s religious beliefs, it’s fascinating to observe that in the creation narrative of Genesis, the task given to man from the very beginning of creation is to till and keep the garden, and that man immediately begins naming and classifying the natural world. We were created not for mindless tasks or self-indulgence, but to work (Gen 2:15-20). Alternatively, we perceive from scientific and philosophical study that humans are capable of creating and using tools, doing abstract thinking, and forming complex, thriving communities that transcend anything done by other creatures. We design, we build, we contemplate, we speak, we read, we write, we craft, seemingly all because we are hardwired to do so in a way incomparable to anything on earth. --->READ MORE HERE

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