Technology Making It Worse
“When the life of people is unmoral, and their relations are not based on love, but on egoism, then all technical improvements, the increase of man’s power over nature, steam, electricity, the telegraph, every machine, gunpowder, and dynamite, produce the impression of dangerous toys placed in the hands of children.”—the diary of Leo Tolstoy (1828 – 1910)
The End Of The Need To Work
Luddites’ Fear
The possibility of the loss of employment was first realised during the onset of the machine age. The invention and application of the steam engine heralded the industrial revolution. It dramatically extended the power and ability of the community. No longer was human strength and endurance the limiting factor in achievements. Machines could be constructed to work harder faster cheaper and more reliably than any group of people, however the initial implementation of machines meant mass unemployment and their use was bitterly opposed. People felt that such innovations were permanently robbing the community of jobs. The Luddite movement spontaneously formed which protested this change and attacked the new machinery along with its owners.
Luddites Wrong
Eventually though it was discovered that these new engines did not destroy employment, but changed and increased it – the Luddites were wrong. The explosion in raw products meant huge increase in the work needed to refine them to make them saleable, as well as a necessary corresponding increase in control and administration. The newly harnessed power extended wealth and employment for everyone. Our society became significantly richer and the Luddite’s fear was forgotten.
Luddites Wrong Only In Timing Not Principle
The communal fright which then proved to be groundless has left a permanent false impression. It has become folk-law that though machines appear to create unemployment, this is only temporary. Regardless of appearances, mass retrenchments will be followed by even greater demands for workers in some new arena — this is a fallacy.
Machines Displace People From Workplace
Machines do not create jobs, they definitely eradicate the need for human effort. The fact that the engines of the industrial revolution created jobs was a reflection of their shortcomings, they were clumsy and stupid. Exploiting their potential meant employing people to make up for these inadequacies. But this did not mean that mechanised systems would always be dependent on human assistance. The development of artificial intelligence and advances in mechanical miniaturisation have overcome these shortcomings, automation has stopped generating jobs since 1980.
Machines Do Work Better Than People, Making Humans Obsolete In The Workplace
The truth is not only are people now surplus, but a liability. People make mistakes, machines do not. People get tired and cranky, machines do not. People are erratic and unreliable, machines are not. People think and act slowly, machines do not. People have very definite limitations of endurance and concentration, machines do not. These human short-comings mean that every modern system is designed to minimise or exclude human intervention; so just as horses became obsolete and were phased out of the workplace, so have people.
Machines Are Taking Over The Work
In every field of human endeavour smart machines are making improvements by supplanting workers. Jet planes are flown by computer, there is no need for a navigator, and the result is superior to any human effort. The weapons systems that protect warships need to react so quickly that any human intervention disables their effectiveness. The whole system operates without the use of a single person.
Machines Make Goods
The manufacture of goods is being automated. Whole factories build consumer goods without employing anyone. No human can compete with the relentless, accurate, speed of the robot.
Provide Superior Bank Teller Service
Automatic Teller Machines provide a continual, convenient banking service. No human agency could supply such a benefit at such a low cost. Throughout our community goods and services are being improved by reducing the number of people required.
Machines Administer
Even the administration of our society is being taken over by clever machines. All large corporations are really computerised systems. The company officials the public sees are just the servants of these entities. From when the public initiate business, to when they pay the final bill, despite the human face presented to them, the affair is primarily conducted by an electronic brain. The communications they receive are generated automatically. The cheques, invoices and reminders are sent without anyone in the business being aware of the transaction. It often only receives human consideration in exceptional circumstances, such as when the bill has not been paid within ninety days. Then the machine will instruct an officer to take action.
No Industry Safe
As I write these words in July, 1999, the Internet is threatening newspapers, the music industry, television broadcasting and even the movie industry. Instant up to date news on many and varied subjects is available, along with pictures, at the touch of a keyboard, via the Internet; a fact which directly threatens newspapers, if not the whole printing industry. Similarly music can be copied onto computer files and played without the need for records or compact discs, undermining the CD creation and publication industries; television programs and commercial films can be copied and viewed in the same way, on home computers or home theatres, making television channels and movie theatres unnecessary. Industries now share the same uncertainty as workers as they do not know how long they will be required.
The Existence Of Libraries Under Threat
The spread and popularity of the Internet is threatening the existence of public libraries, which find themselves increasingly unable to match the service provided by home computers. Already (1990s) they are reducing their collection of books to make way for a growing collection of audio and audio-visual media, as well as supplying personal computers that can access the Internet.
Foundation Of Knowledge In Danger
The newly available media replacing printed books are selected for their popularity, which has become the controlling factor for librarians. Serious works by authors such as Gibbon, Locke and Hume are slowly relegated through of lack of demand to the stack, before their inevitable abandonment. The library services controlled by various councils are slowly adapting to growth of technology by becoming Internet sites themselves, but these are not built around the classical works that once made up the heart of every public library. The selection of works being digitised is invariably parochial and populist, being concerned only with Australian antiquity and local issues (see letter from the Queensland Cultural Centre). Though their web pages often include a list of sites that do offer some traditional works, these recommended links carry no guarantee of accuracy or availability, nor are they connected to the library in any official capacity.
Certainty Vanishes In A Flash
Once knowledge existed on the printed page, which was a stable medium, difficult to alter and easy to read, and insensibly supplied certainty. Laws, agreements, observations, the transactions of a communal mind, could all be written down to be later produced to allay any doubts or suspicions. Promises, ownership and wealth became embedded in the certainty supplied by contracts, title deeds and paper money. Naturally this was not fool-proof but it gave the community a good deal of certainty. But this certainty is now being eroded by electronic replacements; fast, convenient and beyond the power of an individual to check. The message once heralded by a solid, unchanging, document is now proclaimed by a computer screen. The tangible proof supplied by paper has been replaced by a medium that can be changed faster than the blink of an eye, without leaving a single trace. Certainty has vanished in a flash.
Technology Controls Truth
The growing inability of people to know is confirmed as a machine reveals:
Financial Status The replacement of currency with electronic banking means a machine says:
If a bill is due — How much money is in an account. (Balances can now evaporate) — If credit is good.
Land Ownership Tangible paper Land Title is replaced by a computer display (see Queensland Land Titling system)
Guilt or Innocence dictated by: Radar cameras — Red light cameras — Breathalysers — DNA testing
Knowledge The words of scientists and sages is no longer certain. Since books are rapidly being replaced by computer display, technology has made obtaining information easy in principle, but in practice there is no one charged (1999) with ensuring the information online is genuine.
—Technology now tells us what is true, because it is becoming increasingly beyond the power of people to be sure themselves
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