my bolg
In works future, I imagined a question: Will there be no work in this world? Should we be happy or worried in a world without work?
Oscar Wilde imagined a world without work. He wrote in “The Soul of Man under Socialism” (1891): Humans amuse themselves — or enjoy elegant leisure or create beautiful things — while machines do all the tedious but essential work. It sounds wonderful, but a world without work is impossible. The key to business is still for workers to create the innovations that drive companies, such as the wonderful ideas that come from social interactions and emotional labour. While automation and robotics can help companies increase productivity and reduce costs, they are no substitute for human creativity. In addition, at the level of economic and social stability, a stable employment rate guarantees economic growth and social stability. If you have mass unemployment, or if you don’t have people who don’t need to work and don’t have enough income to live on, then demand will fall, which will further weaken economic growth and business activity. Therefore, a world without work is not possible, nor is it a goal we should aspire to.
AI will become more common in the near future. AI can learn through machine learning and can even perform tasks faster and more accurately than humans in some cases. The problem is serious. For example, more and more jobs will be automated, including some traditional knowledge and skilled jobs, such as accountants, lawyers, designers, etc. Suppose I, as a person who has learned knowledge for many years, finally learn a skill but ai comes out just when I am ready to make full use of it, then I will lose the time, energy and meaning I have spent. Losing these may not be very important for the development of the whole society, but for the whole industry, people will no longer choose this industry in the future. The industry will not become more complete because of the influx of talent, there will be no innovation, and the whole industry will slowly map to the whole society, the whole country and the world, making it stagnant.
Ye Wu – I enjoy that you posted this at the start of the intensive. Has your mind changed over the last few days?
I certainly agree that without individuals constantly applying themselves to creation and innovation then we will end up in a place of stagnation. I enjoy how you saw that perhaps happening at an industry level if the industry goes too far into automation – I hadn’t considered a more ‘micro’ view of this problem and it’s good food for thought!