The late Joseph Engelberger, the founder of one of the
world’s first robot manufacturers, was a staunch opponent of the idea that robots
would threaten human existence by taking away jobs.
On the contrary, he saw robots as liberating people
from menial, soul-destroying repetitive tasks and empowering them to achieve a
whole lot more with their lives.
Robots don’t destroy employment, he argued,
rather they “take away subhuman jobs which we assign to people” and in so doing
we give people the time and tools to be enhanced humans – “superhumans”.
Humans have the opportunity to finally concentrate on
those jobs that suit them best; jobs involving creativity, emotion and
innovative disruption. These jobs are not easily replaced by a clever piece of
engineering or a mathematical algorithm; they are quintessentially human and
will probably remain so.
This is not to say that engineering and big data will
not assist in this process, augment existing human capacities, but rather than
replace us they will be at our side to serve us. No longer will we follow the
rhythm of machines but machines will be re-contoured so as to fit our needs and
aspirations in the production process (as they are increasingly doing so in the
consumption process).
This change involves a definition of what it is to be
human. A vast majority of jobs are only taken as a source of earning money; as
a way to survive rather than a tool for developing and expressing ourselves.
If we undertake more meaningful jobs the concept of
humanity redefines itself. The key question of why we are here elicits a
fundamentally different response; a new purpose, humans doing truly human work.
Work which helps us to understand and extend what being human really means.
(Written together with Andrew Dodd)
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