First off, I don’t think the tech overlords are actually going to be able to create the society they want. That vision is simply too far removed from anything resembling what anyone else wants to ever fully come to pass. But, they have convinced a number of corporate types, a decent proportion of our economic and political overlords, that the notion of replacing human workers with machines is something positive. They’re wrong, of course, but the billionaires have a lot of sway these days. A LOT. FAR TOO MUCH.
The tech dudes (and they are mainly dudes, lonely, lonely dudes) want a country where technology not only infects every aspect of our lives, but dominates it. They want us all living through their devices. They’re rich and generally pretty intelligent, so we, the public, have given them far too much credit for everything. The nerds couldn’t be out to get us, right?
Here’s the thing about nerds. They’re angrier than you think. All that high school bullying sticks with you in life, it doesn’t melt away, even with billions of dollars and a hot tan wife who would’ve taunted you in high school but now hangs on your arm at social events.
The world they want is freaking creepy. It involves constant surveillance, no privacy, beeps and clicks and flashes of light everywhere, and a rigid two-tiered society. It’s still the haves and the have-nots, just different archetypes of who the haves are. The haves can code. The haves can barely look other humans in the eye. The haves cannot carry on a face-to-face conversation, but they can rage and dominate through their devices. The have-nots are still blue collar, still less educated, but even the overly educated humanities student now gets demoted from the haves to the have-nots. That means teachers, social workers, writers, priests, firemen, baristas, bartenders, singers, corporate middle managers, drivers (nope, they’re totally going to be robotized so they won’t even exist), farmers, ranchers, law enforcement officers (nope, they’ll be robots too, constantly watching our every move), EMTs, waiters, chefs, hostesses, pretty much 98% of all of us, will now live pointless, directionless lives. Under this rubric, almost all of us will be poor serfs, simply not tech savvy enough to matter.
Again, let me reiterate that I don’t think the tech dudes’ vision is fully going to be realized. Even as their products sadly infiltrate our lives, most of us slowly come to realize, at some point, just how hollow the tech life truly is.
And replacing human jobs with robots may be the single most self-destructive impulse we’ve ever had. Even when they implement some sort of Universal Basic Income (which they’d have to without jobs, since they’re never going to ditch capitalism, it’s their revenge path), that will never make us happy. History has proven time and again that employment is about so much more than just making money. It gives our lives purpose, structure, the feeling that we’re striving for something, moving toward something, and perhaps most importantly, it gives us something to complain about. It’s also about fulfillment, feeling useful, chasing dreams, learning a skill, perfecting it and then passing it on to the next generation. It’s about a rigid divide between your work self and your home self, something that most people seem to need. It’s about self-definition. Ask any man who he is and chances are likely his answer will at least start off with his naming his occupation. Women are generally a little more evolved on this front, but not as much as they used to be before there were more female lawyers than males. And you seriously don’t think the tech dudes envision a society with natural childbirth, do you? That’s not how those guys think. They think technology holds all the answers. They believe it so deeply that they want to give computers decision-making capability. That’s dogshit crazy, but it’s what they think, and they have far too much power these days.
We don’t need to accept their vision. They’re just guys who are good with computers, not Nostradamus. They’re just angry nerds with too much money and power. They can invent whatever technology they want, we just need to weigh the consequences of accepting their shitty worldview a lot more than we currently are.