Sam Altman, of OpenAI fame, has been "internet condemned" for saying that if your job can be replaced by a computer, it probably isn't real work. And I agree with him. and I have agreed with him since before he likely thought this thought, because I am older than him and since I was young, I have questioned the value of much of the work we do.
It is not that our jobs aren't work in the sense that they don't require effort on our part, but my question is whether they are work that needs to be done. For the most part, I believe that the majority of the jobs we currently do in the world today, are "busy work" positions that don't need to be done. It isn't just about survival either, like a farmer who grows food for us to live, it is about our advancement as a species.
As I understand it, while we need certain conditions to survive (food, shelter, relationships), we also have the skills to evolve our species, not just replicate the species. We aren't tied only to the conditions we have, we can create conditions ourselves. I see this as the work of the species, where we could be doing tasks that advance us. Obviously, this should raise questions about what advancement means, but a great deal of what we currently do is pretty valueless toward our advancement, or at the most, highly ineffective to advance us as a species. Instead, it is just part of the supply chain for economic wealth creation, even if it doesn't generate wellbeing for the species.
And again as I see it, wealth creation doesn't automatically mean wellbeing creation. Instead, I would suggest that in the last several decades, wealth creation comes at the expense of wellbeing creation, where there is a net cost to wellbeing, instead of a net gain. Again, this is obviously debatable in terms of what advancement is and what wellbeing actually means for our species.
But since I was a kid, rather than the mechanisms of industry to generate wealth, I have idealistically believed that we should be building our work roles around generating wellbeing within society. The current capitalistic model is one that drives wealth based on demand of goods and services, even if those goods and services are harmful to our wellbeing and advancement as a society. But, the system flexes just as well if wealth was generated from wellbeing supply instead.
Many anarcho-capitalists will talk about abundance, yet most of them err on the side of tokenisation as the measure. The problem is that the token is not the thing and what we should be doing is creating an abundance of wellbeing, which has no ceiling on its level.
We can always be better.
And ideally, that is what all of our work roles should be organised around, where they can all be diverse, but they are all pointing toward a common goal of human excellence. There really is no point in doing tasks that don't take us toward that goal, but the current economic practices are not aligned with human excellence, they are aligned with token maximisation. And what this means is that while automation will replace a lot of roles that a "computer can do" instead, because society isn't aligning itself to the pursuit of human excellence, new roles aren't necessarily created. Instead, the computer models just replace the busy work we are currently doing, in order to satisfy the only metric that companies care about - increasing shareholder wealth.
And it is because of this approach that we face so many issues in the world globally, whether that be degrading environmental conditions, or geopolitical conflict, or energy concerns. Because industry is built around maximising the many forms of token, rather than toward human excellence, industry will always look to create more efficient ways for wealth creation, whether that be through environmental cost, war, or reducing innovation to maximise wealth. The entire economy is about maximising wealth, rather than the moving toward increased wellbeing, and as such, it is about maintaining illness, rather than finding cures.
As said, I am idealistic and I believe that if the entire world stopped its current practices and trajectory and shifted toward a goal of wellbeing and human excellence, we would make incredible leaps and bounds as a species, with absolutely amazing advancements that we cannot even imagine at this point. However, that is not in the interest of those who believe they are benefiting from the token maximisation model, who are also the ones driving policy, practice and influence over the system.
And idealistic as I am, I know that the majority of people will firstly never spend much time thinking about what is actually valuable in this world, let alone change their behaviours toward creating a better world based on what is actually valuable. Instead, we as a majority will find all kinds of ways to keep supporting what we know, because we have been conditioned to believe that this is the only way the economy can work, and that all those smart people who make the decisions for us have our best interest at heart, even as we suffer more and more unnecessarily.
I do not know if we will ever grow up enough as a species to stop infighting for the sake of maximising tokens for the few, and start improving toward a common good of human excellence. I do not believe I will see it in my lifetime, nor will my daughter. But perhaps one day, we will get to some kind of point where we just can't ignore our own active ignorance anymore, and will make a shift toward what is actually valuable for humanity.
Human excellence comes in many forms, but perhaps the highest of which is observable through the relationships we have and our ability to love. But again, I reckon most people don't think through what either healthy relationships or love actually mean in ,context to their daily behaviours, or the impact on the larger community and global population.
Because if we did, we would change.
In terms of advancing human excellence, the work we do is probably counterproductive.
Ready to quit?
Taraz
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The board of directors thing is something I wish everyone knew like I do. The human element goes right out the window and profit leading to shareholder value is all that there is. Have a tough quarter? Fire some people. Hire a new executive to right the ship, he has 6 months to fire a bunch of people. Corporate acquisition to increase the value of the corporate portfolio and buy customers? You better be on the buying end of that transaction or there will be more death by snu-snu (and old joke most people have never heard). These companies will pay more to attract the best who know that they are trading stability for personal profit and are fine with that high stakes game.
When it comes to unsubscribing from that model, that’s what I did when I retired from the big corporate game. It didn’t help much on the immediate finance side but at least I can build our own portfolio of offerings and clients, and take care of my people. In a service based industry (like marketing,) the people are intellectual property. Not property like an asset to be squeezed and maximized in value. An asset to the company to be inspired and activated and rewarded.
I think you are mired in global trends which take too long to change course and the individual has a fart in a windstorm of a chance of changing anything. The shittier it gets with the wealth distribution drying up for the workers, the more of a motivation they will get to say fuck this. Focus on what we can control in smaller circles and grow that at a level we can reach to share with others. It is the less obvious path that takes a while to navigate but the board of directors needs to be starved on the vine one by one.
I think people have a "sense" for it, but don't understand it enough. I also think that many people don't really understand when I say that the metric is shareholder wealth. They get it from the financial perspective, but don't follow the path to what practical implications it has.
I am most definitely mired in the longer term, I get that people want to focus short, but ultimately it is going to cost everyone more, and everyone to come, possibly everything. More and more I get the sense that I m not made for this world as it is. I could ignore it, but it would be active ignorance. Is that the kind of person I am, or want to be? I don't think so. Writing about the bigger things here, helps me focus my daily activities more on what matters to me, and those I care ab out. But, I am still not acting for short-term satisfaction with what I do.
I am definitely in a losing game and everyone will say "I told you so" while we are all aboard the same sinking ship.
Yah man we are alike. I try and keep sane by considering it then shutting it off to concentrate on that which I can control a little more.
I am curious what kind of jobs you refer to with “busy work positions”.
I do work in the IT. So I do understand that each time we do deliver this will result in the end being a position not being replaced or even could result into layoffs. We use the term to make work easier!! Euhu.
The bots running around are sold with the mindset that it will remove the dumb tasks from the workfloor, so that the workfloor could do more creative tasks.
Look at the entire supply chain. For instance, a company makes mining equipment, a company mines, one processes etc... They end up making some piece of crap sold on Temu, or a phone that people use to watch TikTok. Between there are oles like IT that facilitate the sippy chain to more efficiently lead to nothing very great. As fast as advancement of humanity goes, or is just busy work. But if the roles were facilitating Human excellence, the same role could be very valuable. As it stands though, most are not.
More creative tasks. If that was to increase human excellence, then it is valuable creativity. If it is to entertain so as people avoid doing valuable work, then it is a coat, right?
I think automations definitely have their place, but when they stop working or don't work correctly, you need to have someone on hand who knows what they are doing to set things back on track.
They will have backup robots for the backup robots eventually! :D
Probably!
If one quiting would make a difference, not to everyone but for oneself, yes, I'm ready to quit, as a matter of fact I'm longing for it. The way I see it we need it, I need it. Superficiality has been swallowing us step by step, harming us but keeping us "alive". Meaninful things towards excellence are often seen after disasters(not necessarily natural) and losses. Hopefully that will change someday, even if it doesn't in our lifetime or our childs's.
It seems to be the way we are. We don't change our life for the better, until we are faced with a near death experience. Pretty silly.
Agreed. Still it's the way it keeps happening, even when bombs full of others experiences that shows it clearly keep falling by our feet. I'm not an exception of that kind of mistakes either, but at least my mind has learned a thing or two about them and it's opening to real changes that must be made.
Real progress comes from improving our relationships and overall happiness rather than just making money. I think this would make the world a better place for all.
Yet it seems that no one is very interested in relationships and happiness - just the tokens.
I think you are right, we will not see it in our lifetime, though perhaps we will if there is exponential progress of AI and robotics and if they are used for the good of many and not just to make a few even more rich and powerful...
The daily application of love is really hard... it is like we are fighting our own nature to do it...
Isn't this incredibly strange? I have the feeling that our nature is to love, which is how we have evolved. But now, it seems like we have decided that other people don't matter.
In 15-20 years, AI (in robots) will do all my gardening for me. But I'm not sure if it will be able to make money on the stock market (day trading).
Do you enjoy gardening? If so, why would you want a robot to do it?
It is extremely true that wealth does not mean well-being. But it is also true that wealth is needed to bring us well-being. I remember I gave a status on Facebook a few years ago that money is not everything in our life but we cannot imagine anything without money in the present time. Although at present economic objectives are against human welfare but we should think of economies for the purpose of human welfare. But it seems that we are moving away from this day by day.
Yes and no. A tribe a thousand years ago could have wellbeing without wealth. It is just that today, we have decided that in order to have wellbeing, we have to be able to buy something.
True progress lies not in replacing human labor but in redefining work in line with human excellence and collective well-being.
let the computers and bots do the boring work.. that sounds good to me. MY job is to love and spread the hive out as much as I can.. :)