A Work-free Future?

There are two significant movements which are currently disrupting the way we do things. In short, we are at the beginning of a new technological revolution.

Things have changed rapidly over the course of the past generation, and two technologies have burst through their first iteration. I am, of course, talking about blockchain and AI.

Just after the second world war people were dreaming of a world run by artificial intelligence. The trouble with the dream was that computers were slow and clunky. For AI to work properly one needed speedier chips and a substantially improved memory system. It wasn’t until the nineties that AI started to come out of the dream stage and into a technical reality, and it is only within the last decade it has become a feasible technology.

Blockchain technology has only really burgeoned since the introduction of intelligent contracts.

The thing is, the two technologies, allied to the advances in robotics have ushered in a new world order which isn’t just going to usher in the next industrial revolution, it is going to seriously change the way human beings live and even see themselves, and in all probability it will lead to a large proportion of the human race ceding top position in the ascent of man to something mankind has created.

In all this The West is lagging China and the Global South. I have spent quite some time discussing both blockchain technology and AI. I have also pointed out that something seems to be askance in the West where technology has traditionally been advancing at a rapid rate while inflation has also been advancing. This is counter-intuitive. Technology improves the way we do things and makes things easier, quicker and cheaper. That should lead to a world where deflation is the standard situation, whereas in reality we live in an inflationary world.

That is now changing in the Far East, where China is embracing both technologies, and that is rapidly leading to a society in China which is beginning to experience the deflationary effects of those new technologies. In other words, the cost of living in China is going down, as it should naturally do in a technologically advanced society.

That sounds good to me. But there is the other side to this situation. It’s great having robots controlled by AI doing the work for no wages, but traditionally the human race, since it moved into the first industrial revolution, has been used to a life of labour. Even before the eighteenth century, human life revolved around work to survive.

By the end of this decade I assume it will be normal to have servants do almost everything for us, so what will humans do then, poor things?

There are still those living in the past who think shrinking populations are going to pose a problem going forward. Common sense would indicate that growing populations that dont need to work henceforth are going to be the real problem. What will those extra humans do? And why spread the good tidings around more rather than less people?

At least in the future (in fact that means pretty well the present) governments can start taxing the robots instead of people. That sounds like a great idea. Living in a world with no, or few taxes, plus a deflationary economy sounds like nirvana.

We are already getting reports from China that companies previously employing two thousand workers are now getting by with only two hundred. And this movement has only just started.

Of course, we in the West are way behind.

Wait a minute! Shouldn’t the West be ahead of the game in this respect? We have been moving towards service economies. Shouldn’t that mean that rather a lot of workers would probably be happy to still practise their preferred pastimes. You like styling hair, or cooking, or organising tour groups? Great. Keep at it. But you no longer have to work on a factory treadmill. Sounds good to me.

Except that in the West that isn’t the way things have been going. We are now not in the forefront of things, but we have slipped to the back of the evolutionary queue. We aren’t ready for the future. The fact that China is, is going to cause us a lot of bother going forward.

Two things are about to hit those of us living in The West: Trade and Money.

Money in the G7 countries is in a disastrous state. At the same time, 185 countries on the planet are adopting modern money technology. That bodes badly for The West.

Countries that adopt the new technologies are going to be able to create things to sell at a cheaper price, and will prosper as they will be living in a deflationary environment.

If you’re living in a G7 country things are not looking good for the future. Since the present looks pretty bad, that doesn’t leave much to boast about.