Enhancement Rather Than Replacement

by Paul Grimsley

Being a science fiction fan, the idea of living in the future has always had a lot of appeal, but I think I am starting to get to the point where what I want from the future are things that enhance my life and that of my fellow humans, rather than things that seek to replace functions I perform.

The slow disappearance of functions that humans carry out as the robot market asserts itself and edges into smarter input-output approximations of AI does not point to a rosy future for those being replaced. It has the mark of a future designed by people that want to replace unskilled labor and people who want to be paid and may need some care and attention with robust mechanical simulacrums.

I think if work were to disappear in this fashion we would soon start to see an uptick in neurosis as the link between work and purpose and morale becomes more explicit, as it breaks down, and people start to realize they are no longer needed.

It is a nice utopian idea that we will all be sat around in our Star Trek onesies with a replicator making anything we need, and dedicating ourselves to other pursuits. But I don’t see that as being the kind of future everyone wants or needs.

The thing that got me thinking about this was the emergence of flying cars versus the emergence of self-driving cars. One promotes agency and one promotes dependence. The dependence scenario makes me think of There Will Come Soft Rains, where we see an ecology of machines rolling through their routines after some implied apocalypse where humans no longer exist, which seems to point to how the scene really doesn’t need humans in it to give it meaning — kind of like a technological Edward Hopper painting, where absence sits like a weight on the scene.

Science fiction from Flash Gordon to Buck Rogers to even Star Wars were all about the human being operating in a very dynamic way within a space where technology’s main flaw was its movement away from human values. Terminator, Wall-E, Total Recall and others point to a world where humanity has been punished for its failure to be more machine-like. I want the first ideal rather the dystopian alternative — I want rocket packs and flying cars instead of a dynamic that pushes me into floating around in a glorified armchair being spoonfed by robot tenders, as my humanity drains away through inaction.

If taking a few minutes extra in the checkout line means that someone can have a fractionally better life by earning a wage I am happy to do that. Fad driven technology choices shouldn’t trap us into an eventuality where it becomes the only choice.

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