The working classes, from factory workers to middle-class professionals, meanwhile, have seen their status corroded, with a growing number unable to find work or forced to labour under rapidly deteriorating conditions. No wonder they are so loved by their masters. They work relentlessly, accurately and obediently without needing sleep, paid holidays, health insurance or organised unions. Rather, high-tech machines became the new slave or serf class. Unlike what has been predicted in countless dystopian science fiction novels and movies, humans have not been enslaved by robots. However, with the way our economies are currently structured, the fruits of automated labour have largely gone to multinational corporations, their shareholders and top executives – the feudal class of the information age. At their worst, they force us to behave more like machines in order to compete with them and keep our jobs. But these obvious benefits should not cause us to ignore the many drawbacks of such technologies.Īt their best, new technologies work in synergy with humans, freeing us from drudgery and bolstering our mental capabilities. For example, during the coronavirus lockdowns, millions with broadband connections were able to work from home and connect with their loved ones without breaking physical distancing rules – something that would not have been possible just a few decades ago. Innovations that resulted in the service sector needing fewer human workers have undoubtedly brought some benefits. Google, in contrast, is worth considerably more ($370bn) but employs far fewer humans, only about 55,000. In the 1960s, telecoms giant AT&T was worth $267bn in today’s money and employed three-quarters of a million people. This can clearly be seen in the diminishing number of service sector workers required to generate wealth. The service sector, which had long been viewed as the one sector which would continue to create jobs no matter what, is also falling prey to automation.
MAX HEADROOM ALTERED CARBON FULL
While full automation is still relatively rare, partial automation is everywhere – from agriculture to manufacturing. The FANUC manufacturing facility in Japan, for example, functions like a robotic womb, using robots to build robots without the need for human intervention. Today, many manufacturing facilities are more or less completely automated. A couple of generations ago, a typical factory would employ hundreds, if not thousands, of workers. Most importantly, although we are still some way away from humans becoming obsolete in the workforce, much of human labour has already become surplus to requirements.įactories that can function with zero or minimal human intervention (known as “lights-out manufacturing”) are but one visible example of this. The advances in computing power, robotics and AI have enormous implications for society. In fact, we already have machines convincingly acting like humans – so much so that we can create entire computer-generated worlds for our entertainment and fill them with seemingly intelligent characters.
MAX HEADROOM ALTERED CARBON TV
Moreover, technology has advanced so much over the past 35 years that the emergence of a computer-generated TV presenter like Max Headroom would hardly surprise anyone today. Sure, our lives are not controlled by “advertising-mad” TV companies, but they are being overwhelmed by equally advertising-mad social media companies that monitor and record the minutiae of our behaviour. In a way, reality not only met but exceeded the show’s predictions. Max Headroom was from a dystopian future in which the world is ruled by an oligarchy of television networks. Back then, of course, computer technology was not yet up to this mammoth task, so the intelligence behind Max Headroom, just like the actor portraying him on television, was very much human. In the mid-1980s, Max Headroom, a “computer-generated” TV personality with a zany sense of satire and an electronically altered stutter, became the world’s first Artificial Intelligence (AI) superstar.
0 kommentar(er)
