Busiest robot in the office with a heavy workload on all of his six hands.
The closing paragraphs of ‘The New Yorker article, ‘Machine Hands’ (John Seabrook), contain this little nugget:
“It’s also possible that this second wave of A.I.-based mechanization will automate the farmer’s job long before it removes the need for hired labor. In the indoor farms I visited, the brain work of farming-when to plant, irrigate, fertilize, and harvest-has been automated, but not the grunt work.”
This is something I’ve long suspected and have recently blogged about:
“I dunno how well versed these journalists and talking heads are in robotics but the level of sophistication required for a machine to load a UPS truck or do road work is insane. Fine motor function is a tricky business.”(Everyone should Code?)
While I hate to play Freud I think this all has to do with libido. The folks proposing a labor apocalypse delivered on the chrome horse of automation might know a bit of Java. They’re ‘men of letters’, socially savvy (read manipulative), and pathologically concerned about abstract futures.
It’s sexy to worry about the peasants not being able to keep up with your ability to write a Vox article.
But perhaps the effete should be worried about themselves.
Not about being accidentally racist, or sexist, or spilling their lattes on the latest issue of Entrepreneur.
They should be worried about their jobs.
Honestly, it should have been obvious from the start. Which tasks lend themselves to mechanization?
“The repetitive ones that those sweaty truckers and stockers do! You know the kinds done by people who make boner jokes. O shit is that the HR lady…I was using boner to describe how the lower classes talk…”
No, my precious orchid.
The sorts of jobs that lend themselves to automation are computational. They’re things with decision trees that don’t require the trees to sprout hands. In a nutshell: brain work.
Stuff that requires the fast and accurate scanning of vast reams of data, the analysis of that data, and a decision. Sure, QuickBooks hasn’t made accountants obsolete. It has however necessitated a bit of scurrying:
“Technology is rapidly reshaping the accounting industry, making certain skills and knowledge obsolete but at the same time creating opportunities for accountants to offer new services in the marketplace. For future accounting leaders, perhaps the biggest determinant of success is staying ahead of the technology curve so new innovations enhance one’s business, not replace it.”(https://quickbooks.intuit.com/ca/resources/pro-taxes/new-skill-sets-future-accounting-leaders/)
This suggests that it’s not truckers that will be thinner on the ground but research assistants, HR people, and stockbrokers.
Basically people who have to repetitively dig through data and perform basic logic. Things that a robot (computer) can do much better faster and cheaper than it can pick a strawberry.
This article isn’t here to gloat about folks losing their jobs. It’s here to point out that we need to think more deeply about what we value as a society. About what brings purpose to people’s lives.
Why haven’t we seen Glenn Gould in decades?
The answer is people define themselves through their jobs. Their self-worth is wrapped up in the ability to do work that’s more sophisticated and important than the schmuck in the truck (hence student loan crisis). Society values an insane mechanized orgy of buying and selling where Universities serve as bargaining chips rather than bastions of cultivation.
All the while engaging in self-congratulatory pity for the class of people who can actually change the oil.
Whoda thunk that the finesse of picking a strawberry just right is akin to the finesse of sawing a violin bow on a string? Whoda thunk that boolean operators handled statistics better than a hungover analyst?
Automation is inevitable. Let’s not let class pretensions blind us to where it’s most likely to happen. Now that we are getting a grasp on how to feed, clothe, sanitize, and house our teeming billions maybe we can start getting pre-industrial.
No, I don’t mean going Amish. I mean a return to craftsman culture. The sort of attention to detail, originality, and quality that flourished in Benjamin Franklin’s day. The sorts of activities that enrich lives and communities while being fulfilling in a specifically human way.
This isn’t writing code, or optimizing SEO, it’s the manipulation of matter. Manipulation – manus – doing it by hand. Hands honed by experience and guided by well-trained human minds and well trained human hearts.
‘There’s more than that to being poor.’ A discussion on the disconnect between pundits and the working class.
The question as to whether or not I should upload this… was answered – when I did a random search for Free Domain music on the Internet Archive and found a song with the title: ‘There’s More Than That To Being Poor’
The Sketch of Sam Monroe is a weird fiction thriller. Follow the adventures of five quirky Black Ops pharmacologists as they globetrot their way to the Mato Grosso jungles. Philosophy, psychedelics, and banter are infused throughout this literary comic-book.
“How old are these stories?” Graham asked tapping Fabre’s Bible.
“Depends on a lot of factors…” Cook said puzzling over the possibilities.
“Which stories are you referring to exactly?” Bohm inquired.
“Soddom and Gomorrah.” Hoyt replied.
“Buttstuff.” Sam sniggered.
“Well, I honestly have no idea.” Cook said. “It’s not my area.”
“Do you think they are original?”
“The stories from the Bible?”
Graham nodded.
“The modern convention suggests that some are borrowed from earlier civilizations such as Sumeria. And I believe that Abraham’s origin is somewhere around Iraq.”
“If the children of Israel borrowed from Sumeria. Is it possible that Sumeria also borrowed.”
“Certainly, but that isn’t archeology…that’s sheer speculation.”
“Of course.” Graham exhaled smoke. “But entertain the thought.”
“Ok.”
“Who is God?”
“Christ.”
“His Father?”
“Yahweh.”
“Who is Yahweh?”
Cook shook his head.
“Baruch…Elohim…Adonai.”
“I am not Jewish.”
“Neither am I…but you see how we got trinitarian…and then downright polytheistic.”
We were all blankfaced.
“Do you really not remember my uncle’s record?”
It was so long ago. We were again blankfaced.
“Names, divine identities, these are human inventions, they are descriptors of the indescribable. Something that can never be grasped. Grandeur that one cannot gaze upon. What happens when you gaze upon it?”
“You are burned away…by the glory of the most High.” Fabre piously muttered.
Hoyt smiled his Cheshire smile, “…and what happened to them?” He jerked his thumb towards the monitors.
“You are suggesting that this is the site of Sodom?”
“What was Sodoms sin?”
“Buttstuff!” Sam repeated excitedly.
“Which is the first commandment?”
“Thou shalt have no other gods….”
“What presumption is implied by gazing upon the face of God?”
“Omnipotence, omniscience, a Luciferian entitlement.”
Hoyt nodded. “There is something of the cleric about you Doctor.”
“I fail to see what this has to do with anything here.”
“They were burned away and something fertile grew in its stead. Something fertile and primitive…a humbling occurred.”
I am an American. I came to this country when I was very young and have made an extensive study of the enlightenment era values and principles it was founded on.
That doesn’t mean I ignore my background. Nor does it mean that I sit around feeling kosher as corporate media constantly insults and berates the country of my birth.
Pictured – Russian SCUM
It’s a highhorse, soapbox, fingerwag that I’m talking about. The idea being that here in the West we have press freedom and journalistic ethics.
Julian Assange who has been in confinement for nearly a decade was just arrested.
Is this Putin’s doing?
Will there be the same sort of outcry about “the fourth estate” from CNN, MSNBC, etc. that happens when Trump sends a spicy tweet to a journo?
Pictured – Guccifer
I didn’t necessarily want to comment on this unfortunate situation from this angle. Maybe that’s exactly why I should. There is information aplenty about Julian Assange and the sort of work he has done. I encourage you to seek it out and form your own opinion. I suppose my little part in decrying this outrage will be to point out the eternal hypocrisy of corporate media.
An apparatus that has overseen decades of war, income disparity, and social decline with folded arms.
I do not deny that Russia has many problems. I do not know enough about Putin to approve or disapprove. Poor behavior in the United States is certainly not an excuse for poor behavior on the part of Russia.
But one must ask who grandstands the most on these particular issues?
Maybe I will be pleasantly surprised. And I do indeed hope that ‘The West’ bears the standard it promotes in regards to Mr. Assange.
The Sketch of Sam Monroe is a weird fiction thriller. Follow the adventures of five quirky Black Ops pharmacologists as they globetrot their way to the Mato Grosso jungles. Philosophy, psychedelics, and banter are infused throughout this literary comic-book.
The tent was hastily assembled on the periphery of what we surmised to be a drowning pool. Syncretism wasn’t unthinkable but it still surprised Cook to see Mayan rites along an Incan road through Kuikuro lands. That is if that’s what we were currently seeing on our monitors.
“So you don’t have to preprogram it?” Lobo was incredulous.
“Nah, this Israeli shit is pretty good.”
“South Korean.” Lucas corrected.
“Jointly developed.” I finished.
“So..100 feet…there’s no way radio waves can penetrate the water…”
“Ultrasound.”
“Yep, that’s real time response.” Lucas said proudly. His brother in law headed up R&D in Seoul.
We hovered over the submarine ossuary. It was a grim show indeed. I counted at least seven skulls. Who knew how many more lay beneath the silt?
“These aren’t children’s bones.” Bohm said.
“So it’s not likely that it’s Incan.” Cook elaborated.
“Either way that’s bad Voodoo.” Fabre said clutching his Gris-gris. I smiled at the syncretism among syncretism. A Catholic holding an IslamoPagan charm for protection against Mayan wells in the green hell.
“There is no sign of trauma?” Bohm stated and asked simultaneously.
“Not that I can see.” Cook replied.
“We’d see a lot better if we were down there.” Sam whinged.
“With the roots, silt, and currents?” Lobo challenged drily.
“With dignity, manhood, and not being a little pussbag.”
“Idiot.”
“Did you note the discoloration?” Graham surprised us.
“…no…but now that you mention it…”
“This couldn’t be any clearer.” Hoyt said flatly.
“…phh..hm…well why don’t you just tell us then.” Cook was beginning to get irritated.
“It would be unsportsmanlike.” Graham Hoyt replied exhaling smoke.
“O?”
“Tell me doctor have you ever been to the Ganges?”
“Yes. Many times.”
“Did you witness the pyres?”
“Si.”
“Well, than it’s all in hand.”
Cooks face took on a look of extreme concentration. Just as I was sure the vein on his forehead would burst he exclaimed. “Pugilistic positioning.”
He extended a finger toward a skeletal forearm and fist.
“They were burned.”
“I am not aware of any Mesoamerican rite involving fire.” Bohm said.
“It wasn’t a rite.” Hoyt added in his detached way.
“Shit!” Sam cried out. “I had a dream about a fire last night…they…they were trying to escape the fire.”
I am an American. I came to this country when I was very young and have made an extensive study of the enlightenment era values and principles it was founded on.
The Fractal Journal 