A large portion of today was spent with colleagues talking about our business model, which led to conversations about models in general. It started in the morning with a conversation about career paths and the "who you know" issues some people seem to have, and later went into artificial intelligence replacing employees.
For a sliver of background, all business models look to make employees redundant. This is because they are for profit enterprises and as such, will constantly look to create efficiencies and optimize expenses. If ten employees are required to perform a particular set of tasks, and the efficiency of those tasks can be improved by ten percent, they will make one person redundant. If a machine is able to do ten percent of the tasks, they will make one person redundant. If a machine can do 100% of the task, the human role doesn't exist.
Now currently, it is not worth automating all tasks, even if it is possible to do so. But, it is good to recognize that just about everything a human does is codifiable, which means it can be replicated through algorithms. As we know, a lot of things already are, and yet most people are still employed. This is because for a time, we are able to shift into areas that are not currently able to be codified or, aren't worth codifying yet. Eventually though, it could be that we are altogether obsolete.
However, along that path is a process of skill gaps forming, and at the moment, it can likely already be seen that mid-range skill jobs that can be codified are being so, like administration in a company. This means that people in those areas have to upskill into a job role that requires more, or downskill into a job that isn't worth codifying yet. Downskill in this sense is moving from knowledge work into physical work - like being a document controller and then becoming a plumber.
When it comes to upskilling however, how much can a person do so? Generally, people do what they can do the best they can do it in terms of getting employed, which means that a lot of people can't climb very far up the skills ladder. For instance, the estimate a few years ago was that if all transport was instantly self-driving, eight million people in the US would near instantly lose their jobs, including waitstaff in roadside diners. How many truck and taxi drivers, as well as waitstaff can upskill highly enough to be employable elsewhere?
I brought this up with a colleague today and he said that there will come a point where it would be better just to pay these kinds of people not to work. Sure, but there is a fundamental problem with that, because our economy is a profit-based economy. People who aren't contributing are a burden on profits, so it would be more like what has happened in the past with some populations, where they are essentially left to die, or kill themselves.
This is the business model we subscribe to.
Just like in a tribe, if people aren't adding value, they are going to be left behind eventually. So, this means that either we will cull people off one way or another, or realign ourselves to what constitutes as value.
Why do we have to add value?
A colleague also described a world where none of us worked, where we didn't "have to worry about contributing value" to the group, because everything was taken care of by machines.
They saw this as a utopia.
I see it as a dystopia.
My question is, if we aren't adding value, what are we doing? And while the answer was "whatever we want", I don't think people fully understand what drives humans, and what our nature demands from us. It requires sharing of ourselves to at least feel relevant to others. This is part of the reason that the current culture of people hyper-focusing on their own pleasure, is leading to a lot of depressed people. It is because what they are actually doing to themselves, is reducing their relevancy in the world of others, making their life meaningless.
As I said to my colleague. The best steak in the world is not as good if it is eaten alone. The same with the best movie. The real value of these things is the sharing of experience, but if we aren't able to add value to our world, we are also not able to differentiate ourselves and be interesting to others either. We homogenize through consumptive behaviors, and end up isolating ourselves, because we are all the same.
Average.
A lot of people seem to drive for more representation of the average person in the media, but I don't want that at all. Because, the average person is not a model of health, so we shouldn't be normalizing unhealthiness as the model to be, just so we feel better about ourselves, We should all be striving to be better in some way, and modelling people better than us is how we learn, and how we push the envelope on our skillset.
And how we add value to others.
This morning my supervisor, a colleague and myself (both women) were sitting at a table having a coffee and my supervisor had a little bottle of some drink that she was struggling to open. I asked her if she would like me to do it, and added something like "are you going to show how manly you are?"
No. I am going to help you so you can drink your juice.
Note: she was teasing.
It isn't about being manly, it is about finger strength. My supervisor can deadlift 100kg, but that doesn't mean she has the same strength in her fingers that I do. In some things, I am going to be more suited, so we can share skillsets and add value to each other's experience. She gets some juice, I can get some help with structuring learning experiences - as she is better than me at that by far.
Introduce enough tools, and we have nothing to share with each other, because we don't have skill differentiation. This doesn't just affect what we can do for each other, it affects every interaction we have with each other. Perhaps the massive decline in sex in the younger age groups, as the normalization and explosion in the sex toy industry has meant that people can literally go fuck themselves better than a real partner. A bedroom aid, has become a partner replacement.
I can buy myself flowers
Write my name in the sand
Talk to myself for hours
Say things you don't understand
I can take myself dancing
And I can hold my own hand
Yeah, I can love me better than you can
-Miley Cyrus
People who think that technological evolution into automation and artificial intelligence is just going to affect worklife, are fooling themselves. These things are going to fundamentally change the way we operate as a society, and will impact on the very fabric of what makes us human, and gives us purpose as humans. We can already see it in the behaviors and outcomes of those who spend a large amount of time behind screens and digital experiences, and this is going to rapidly snowball as our comfort and convenience is paramount, over our health as a society.
We all want to be heard. But increasingly, the people shouting have no value to add to the conversation - they just want to feel like someone gives a shit about them.
No one does.
Buy a sex toy that has an algorithm to listen to your complaints of loneliness, and responds to make you feel like you matter.
Get fucked.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
