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The Death of the 9-5

What will the workplace of tomorrow look like?

Issue 66, 1st May 2018
| Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tilburg
1,392 words
Read time: approx. 7 mins

Machines powered by self-learning algorithms and internet connections are displacing humans from all kinds of jobs, from driving to legal discovery to acting in movies. Will there be any work left for us to do? Economics says yes. Will it be awful or will it be nice? That is up to us.

Firstly, basic economic principles and the history of technological revolutions show that displacement does not mean replacement. Humans are not going to run out of economically valuable things to do for each other. We will not share the fate of horses in the early 20th century.

Thomas R. Wells
Issue 66, 1st May 2018

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I'm normally much more antagonistic when I read articles like these written by the pampered pompous professors who wouldn't make it a day outside of academia, but I'm going to take a different track. Instead of saying some bumper sticker slogan like, "This is your brain on liberalism" or " Rome took 500 years to fall, Obama did it in 8." I'm going to try to point out some hard truths to see if rational thought isn't dead in modern America.

Hard Truth #1: We have spent the last 45 to 50 years convincing ourselves that in order to succeed in life, you must work, network, and reinvest in your continuing education. Just because robots can do it better than you doesn't mean you get to enjoy the fruits of other's labor for free.

Hard Truth #2: No one is willing to pay you money to exist. Human life just doesn't have as big of a premium as progressive aligned people think it is. If you served your country instead of just taking handouts, you'd see how a friend can go from comrade in arms to dead real quick. Death doesn't care how many trees you hug or Teslas you can buy.

Hard Truth #3: Every time scientists think they're close to "Changing the world", it always turns out bad or (usually) disappointing. For example: Carbon Nanotubes. We invested so much money in getting them to work, and it turns out they give you mesothelioma so that project is scrapped. So too will be the fate of AI.

Hard Truth #4: Microsoft and China both showed us how quickly they will shut down an AI if it breaks loose of what they wanted it to say. Even if there was a way for man to create an entity smarter than we are, those at the top of the heap will never allow an AI to challenge their position in the world.

Hard Truth #5: There are already too many lazy people who are content with sitting at home and toking up or shooting up or drinking. Enabling them is antithetical to the progress of society.

I hope you, or your editor, managed to make it all the way down here. But if you couldn't, I wish you luck with your robot foodstamps. This human at least, is not going to be "outmoded" by robots or computers.