The Future of Work.

Han Fook Kwang raised a good question in his article today - “What is the future of work?”

He asked: “Will robots and artificial intelligence replace much of the workforce? Which job will disappear?”

I guess with such rapid advancement of technology and AI, and its threat of replacing us, what worries me most is not that we work less, or that we might face some form of job displacement, but how will it change us? I mean, our humanity, that is, the way we treat others. 

We are not without some historical precedent here. Think about Henry Ford’s mass production of cars and suddenly, the problem of horse poops were automatically resolved. And going with it into oblivion were horses and carriages too. Yes, horses as mode of transport are out of a job, so to speak. 

But horses are not humans. They do not have families to feed. They do not compare and then form a protest when they see injustice, unfairness and exploitation. In other words, you can’t lock us up in a barn like horses and expect us to eat grass the whole day. 

You know, in 1930, John Maynard Keynes once touted the 15 hour work week. He predicted that with technological change and productivity improvement, the labour force will soon enjoy shorter hours of work and more time for leisure and the pursuit of the other finer things in life, like discussing philosophy under a safari shade.

Alas, nothing can be further from the truth or the reality we are experiencing now. 

In the article, Fook Kwang cited a book launched last week called “Hard at Work: Life in Singapore.” The authors, professor Gerald Sasges and Ms Ng Shi Wen, complied interviews from workers about what they do and how they are doing. 

It appears that the common thread that cuts through most of their stories is that the hours are getting longer, and the pay check is getting smaller (relative to the cost of living), at least for the majority of workers in the labour force. 

Fook Kwang wrote: “...many work hard and long hours, and have very little time for anything else...(and) money is always a big concern. Not about making it rich but just making it.”

One Starbucks barista said: “The thought of quitting this job never leaves my mind. Every day I wake up at 5am. Shower. Walk to Choa Chu Kang MRT station, board the train...Reach my office before 6:30am. Clock in. Do the opening. Set up the pastry case or bar. Perform. Clock out at 4. Take the train home. Wash up, have dinner and go to sleep. Repeat.”

If you happen to get lost reading what he does, just focus on the concluding word, “Repeat”. That should surmise the nature of his autopilot, mind-numbing job. 

Here is one even more raw and candid. In one of the interviews, a Bangladeshi worker sums up this way.

“You first Singaporean I talk to...Sometimes feel only know building Singapore, not people. I see here all people very busy, lot of money, and maybe don’t like us. We dirty, smelly...My job like that.”

Mm...kinda of bring back the horse and carriage example earlier, where some workers are treated nothing more than work horses...

But I know what some of you reading this may be thinking quietly to yourselves: “Mm...thank god, I have work satisfaction. Every day is new and refreshing. I learn new things. I thrive and earn good money. I have people under me. I can retire at 40, and then really pursue philosophy by my indoor, exclusive swimming pool, overlooking the rising and setting sun.”

Well, I guess you are in good company with many out there enjoying the same fruit of their industry. I can’t say you don’t deserve it. You sow, you reap, and reap abundantly. Thank god indeed. 

Yet, if the Bangladeshi worker has taught me anything, it is what he said about us, which we often do not see ourselves. “I see here all people very busy, lot of money, and maybe don’t like us. We dirty, smelly.”

Earlier, I asked, “In a world of rapid technological changes, how will it change us? I mean, our humanity, that is, the way we treat others?” Here is a rough idea of what I think about this question.

I used to think that in the digital age, we will finally be equal. 15-hour work week, more time for work-life balance, people will treat each other better, work for money will become a thing of the past. And the digital utopia goes on and on. Because in a digital age, shouldn’t money work for us instead of the other way round? And don't we have more time for better things/activities like deepening our values, polishing up on our virtues, that is, the way we treat others, instead of out-competing, out-sourcing and out-bidding others, ensuring we win and others lose? Delusional me I guess.

Let me just say that it is without a doubt that Sir Tim Berners-Lee created the web, which led to the internet, as a democratizing force.  In other words, I believed he designed it as a means to the end of seeing humans being treated as a means to the other human's selfish ends. So, the initial conception or intention was that we ought to be more equal with such equalising technology, right?

But, alas, the stats are not so encouraging - to put it mildly. 30 years on, and among other contributing factors, we still end up with this reality - "about 80 percent of corporate wealth is now being held by just about 10 percent of companies." 

And the Big Techs (namely, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, even Apple) are leading the world in the accumulation of inordinate wealth, setting up legislatively protected monopolies with money thrown at lobbyists, and spinning off insane profit from violating our privacy, our personal data and our creative contents. 

Journalist Rana Foroohar, in her book “Don’t be evil: The case against Big Tech” wrote: -

“How did we get here? How did an industry that had once been scrappy, innovative, and optimistic become, in a span of just a few decades, greedy, insular, and arrogant? How did we get from a world where “information wants to be free” to one in which data exists to be monetized? How did a movement built on the goal of democratizing information come to all but destroy the very fabric of our democracy? And how did its leaders go from tinkering with motherboards in their basements to dominating our political economy?”

Mm...pardon me for adding even more questions to Fook Kwang’s article, but that is, to me, the larger issue at stake, that is, “What would become of us? How would technology change us? Would we continue to treat fellow workers as no more than a means to our end, or worse, retire them early because we have robots to do their jobs?” Is there any truth in these words, "I see here all people very busy, lot of money, and maybe don’t like us. We dirty, smelly."

And will our future be one where the top 1% harbours this digital utopian idea that technology and technology alone holds the messianic key to solving all our problems, including one day getting rid of 90% of humanity we consider redundant and inconvenient?” 

Anyway, let me end with what Alan Turing once said: -

“I certainly hope and believe that no great efforts will be put into making machines with the most distinctively human, but non-intellectual, characteristics such as the shape of human body; it appears to me quite futile to make such attempts and their results would have something like the unpleasant quality of artificial flowers.”

Well, I think the unpleasantness of an artificial flower will be the last of humanity’s worry here. 

As I write this, there are unregulated laboratories and factories in the world that are going ahead with creating the perfect human robots to replace us. They will be godlike in every way, and the question these big tech companies ought to then ask themselves is this: -

“How do you program humanity, with all its rich history, its foibles and humility, into a machine so that it would not follow the footsteps of one Lucifer, who, in his obsession to be like god, took one-third with him and started a rebellion against its maker, which in this case, would be the top 1% in the world?” 

Because, if you think about it, if the climate crisis doesn’t get us, and I mean, all of us, our hubris in technology might just finish the job.