Hi All,
On the assumption there isn't some global catastrophe, it is almost inevitable that in the west we will see a visible "rise of the machines" i.e. artificial intelligence in the next two decades. This new industrial revolution will hit blue collar workers first, but take to its logical extreme there's no reason why AI cannot do white collar or professional work.
In science fiction literature there was initially great utopian hope about robots, as like vacuum cleaners , doing household chores that women had to do (1950s/60s). Then the literature became increasingly hostile to AI , with fears of an apocalyptic scenario as exemplified by Terminator: Whereas 'bladerunner' was more of a muddle - through between these two extremes.
But the rise of AI does beg the question : what are we going to do with humanity, if all the jobs are gone?
There's a couple of scenarios , here's just a few :
1). The utopia : humanity is akin to a socialist utopia where all humans are provided for and are all people of leisure. The robots do all the work .
2). The Dystopia : not the rise of the machines , as in robots taking over, but more utopia for the elite. On this scenario robots are the labour force and the elite 1% live in this utopian luxury. The rest who don't have access to this are either culled like animals or live some kind of mad max living in the wilderness away from the enclosures of the elite.
3). The middle- topia : a mixture of 1 and 2. Yes there's no need to work as the robots do it, we can have anything we want. But we have become bored, unambitious , selfish, self centred, with the thrill of seeking ever more stimulus from virtual reality, drugs and dangerous pursuits, rather than being able to reach higher , loftier goals. We've become a society where social media has become the court of law and where people are punished or rewarded by votes on a some mega computer....
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