What keeps me up at night is thinking about the motivations behind these breakthrough technologies. All of them, are largely sponsored by deep pockets in the search for cheaper and more reliable means of production. Over time, along with the enhancement of their capabilities, artificial intelligence will be taking more jobs than just the average cashier, taxi driver, parking lot attendant or travel agent. The first step is already here digital processes are creating new processes that enable companies to do more with fewer people, human jobs are becoming obsolete at a faster pace than their skills and organizations can catch up. And you know who’ll own all of this intelligence? The people with a ton of money of course, as this happens, capital will become even more polarized than it is now, the rich will become ultra-mega-rich and the poor will be at their total mercy. I can even picture an even creepier future, where people with no capital (most of us) become absolutely irrelevant to those with means because our “consumer power” has been taken away along with those jobs. In other words, we won’t have jobs to get money from → we’ll have no money to consume and therefore → we no longer play any active role in a modern capitalist society.

Luddites past and present are not anti-technology in the abstract — the real struggle is against the restructuring of social relations at their expense. What will happen when the larger percentage of the population become incumbents or luddites, when all these innovations will be created at the expense of everyone else who’s not part of the 1%? Will money still be relevant at that point? If people don’t have jobs, who’ll play the consumer role? Will the 1% be the only one with ‘time’ to live? I don’t know, I’m simply curious about that future. Someone should be making these questions cause James Cameron is not making a movie about the economic repercussions of innovation any time soon.

New technologies make existing skills and machines obsolete. It’ll be funny when we become the “machines” and our skills render obsolete.

:)