And the question then always comes up: do robots steal work from humans, or create more riches for humans?
In Iain M. Bank's Culture books, he has a semi-galactic civilization where machine intelligence has outspanned human intelligence by several orders of magnitude, and where everything anybody (humans, aliens, or drones) need is produced automatically. Nobody needs work if they don't want to. Amazingly, most people are sane, more so than on Earth today in fact, if I'm any judge. I wonder if work or at least some kind of function in society is not necessary to stabilize a human being.
Amazingly, most people are sane, more so than on Earth today in fact, if I'm any judge. I wonder if work or at least some kind of function in society is not necessary to stabilize a human being.
ReplyDeleteIt could be, although in the Culture they're not afraid of genetic engineering, cybernetic enhancement, or recreational drugs. It actually kind of sounds like hell, as humans in that civilization are like the pets of the Minds. In a situation like that I'm not sure I could get too jazzed about working when doing so would be pointless. For work to matter we have to feel useful even if we're not irreplaceable.
Both fascinating and creepy!
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