ryochiji (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} ryochiji) wrote,@ 2008-12-19 21:26:00 |
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on technology and labor
I saw something deeply unsettling today. At work, a bunch of us went on a field trip, and visited a partner that generates maps and other geographical data through aerial photography. It sounds innocuous, but I was shocked when they filed us into a large, artificially lit, sterile office. Inside, rows and rows of mostly young women in uniforms sat at work stations, blankly staring into a screen, silently toiling away at some menial task. It was the most depressing thing I've seen in a long time. I felt like I was watching slaves working a cotton field in the mid 19th century South. I felt like I was watching cattle, broken and immobilized in tiny pens. I was reminded of that scene in the Matrix where we see the vast field of human pods. That's what they were. They might as well have been half a brain attached to a computer. They were confined to a life spent locked in front of a computer at least 8 hours a day, because some small aspect of their brain was valuable1.
My brother is an activist for laborers. He apparently finds it troublesome that technology is taking jobs away from people. I wasn't sure how to respond to that as a technologist, but today, I found my answer. The answer is this: we should free humans to do what they love, instead of wasting their valuable time on sub-human tasks. I'm confident that the work all those young women in that room were doing could be done by machines. But they were using humans because they haven't been able to come up with adequate algorithms2.
Of course, if they were to come up with adequate algorithms, those girls would be out of jobs. The sad reality is also that, in this society, you can work or you can starve. But instead of blaming technology for taking away menial jobs, I would rather focus on the reality that some people can only choose between working menial jobs and starving3. Why can't people live the lives they want and also not starve? I don't know what the answer is, but in that office, looking at my coworkers on the one hand, and those girls on the other, I couldn't help but think there was a solution somewhere. Thousands of Googlers do what they love doing and generate billions upon billions of dollars of wealth. Surely, in a society like ours, we should be able to find a way for those girls to contribute to society by doing what they love doing.
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1 - I make it sound like those girls are miserable. In reality, they may not be. Some of them might enjoy the work, and the rest of them probably find it tolerable at worst. Having said that, if they were given a choice and told money wasn't an issue, I suspect almost all of them would rather be somewhere else doing something else. This is in contrast to the majority of my coworkers, who, even if given a choice, would probably still be writing code.
2 - Which is why we need more Computer Scientists.
3 - I actually don't believe this is inherently true, but it is practically true for most people because they either believe it to be true, or were not given (or were robbed of) skills to find an alternative. It is also more true in countries like Japan (and the US) than it is in other countries that have more advanced social welfare programs.
I saw something deeply unsettling today. At work, a bunch of us went on a field trip, and visited a partner that generates maps and other geographical data through aerial photography. It sounds innocuous, but I was shocked when they filed us into a large, artificially lit, sterile office. Inside, rows and rows of mostly young women in uniforms sat at work stations, blankly staring into a screen, silently toiling away at some menial task. It was the most depressing thing I've seen in a long time. I felt like I was watching slaves working a cotton field in the mid 19th century South. I felt like I was watching cattle, broken and immobilized in tiny pens. I was reminded of that scene in the Matrix where we see the vast field of human pods. That's what they were. They might as well have been half a brain attached to a computer. They were confined to a life spent locked in front of a computer at least 8 hours a day, because some small aspect of their brain was valuable1.
My brother is an activist for laborers. He apparently finds it troublesome that technology is taking jobs away from people. I wasn't sure how to respond to that as a technologist, but today, I found my answer. The answer is this: we should free humans to do what they love, instead of wasting their valuable time on sub-human tasks. I'm confident that the work all those young women in that room were doing could be done by machines. But they were using humans because they haven't been able to come up with adequate algorithms2.
Of course, if they were to come up with adequate algorithms, those girls would be out of jobs. The sad reality is also that, in this society, you can work or you can starve. But instead of blaming technology for taking away menial jobs, I would rather focus on the reality that some people can only choose between working menial jobs and starving3. Why can't people live the lives they want and also not starve? I don't know what the answer is, but in that office, looking at my coworkers on the one hand, and those girls on the other, I couldn't help but think there was a solution somewhere. Thousands of Googlers do what they love doing and generate billions upon billions of dollars of wealth. Surely, in a society like ours, we should be able to find a way for those girls to contribute to society by doing what they love doing.
---
1 - I make it sound like those girls are miserable. In reality, they may not be. Some of them might enjoy the work, and the rest of them probably find it tolerable at worst. Having said that, if they were given a choice and told money wasn't an issue, I suspect almost all of them would rather be somewhere else doing something else. This is in contrast to the majority of my coworkers, who, even if given a choice, would probably still be writing code.
2 - Which is why we need more Computer Scientists.
3 - I actually don't believe this is inherently true, but it is practically true for most people because they either believe it to be true, or were not given (or were robbed of) skills to find an alternative. It is also more true in countries like Japan (and the US) than it is in other countries that have more advanced social welfare programs.
