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On Hive, you often see personal stories in diary form. About gardening, cooking, art, pets, health, small victories or struggles, and honestly, that's usually what I blog about. Things close to me, that's the easiest thing to blog about. Usually, by taking a photo, a blog comes to mind. Or something I've experienced, and I take a picture of it. In any case, usually really personal experiences.
Today's blog is different. This blog is not a report of my day, nor of my week, it is not an update of a project I'm working on, and it is not a photo of my lunch. My blog today is about a question that has nestled in my head after reading a news article about an AI that can predict the weather for the next 10 days more accurately than meteorologists with the help of supercomputers can do now. Climate scientists have managed to develop this AI and have fed it with immense amounts of weather information. The result is an AI that can accurately predict the weather for the next 10 days. And we all know how often a weather forecast is wrong ... if AI can give me a reliable weather forecast? Hats off!
We Become Redundant!
Only this does evoke other thoughts in me. Because gradually, humans are developing technology so rapidly that we are working very hard to make ourselves redundant. Technology is taking over our work in more and more places. And technology is also often better at many jobs. It brings great benefits to companies that focus on this. It costs a large investment, yes, certainly. But afterwards? Afterwards, a company saves a lot of costs, they need much less staff, no people who get sick, no people who want a vacation, no people who are distracted from their work. Technology and AI continue undisturbed, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. 365 days a year. Just always, without complaining, without wage demands. And that is the direction we are increasingly heading. We have become replaceable. We have made ourselves redundant.
And what will happen to us when the entire economy will soon be based on technology?
Smart technology, lagging systems
We live in a time in which we have made AI so intelligent that AI can do everything we can, and often much better, too. We have now reached the point where AI writes, thinks, calculates, analyses, translates, advises, and creates. About 5 years ago, you still needed people to find answers to questions, but now we have reached the point where the answer to everything no longer lies with people, but in the cloud. Only what you see now is that there is one important thing that is not moving along with these rapid developments. And that is Our social structures.
Policymakers, governments, and economic institutions, you see them running after the facts with an outdated manual and a fax machine in the basement. While tech companies invest billions in automation, the impact of the internet is still being debated at a high level. And they have priorities that are laughable in themselves, but can almost be called satire in light of the major problems that are knocking on the door and are systematically ignored. Let's take a look at what governments consider important at the moment.
Examples of absurd priorities in times of impending social collapse:
1. Brussels: "Warning! These baby wipes contain plastic!"
While robots are making entire professions redundant and millions of people are at risk of losing their livelihood, the EU has decided that it is important that your pack of baby wipes has a pictogram of a fish with a cross through it.
(Save the environment, but let the people struggle.)
2. The Netherlands: "Nitrogen rules for chicken farmers down to the square millimeter!"
Meanwhile, no plan for the hundreds of thousands of self-employed people and flex workers who will soon no longer have any work. (Maybe they can apply for welfare... in quadruple nitrogen-neutral paper. If there are still enough working people to pay for that welfare)
3. France: "Ban short shorts in high schools!"
Because that is, of course, the problem of our time: teenage knees. Not unemployment, social unrest, or inequality.
(After all, revolutions always start with bare knees, don't they?)
4. Italy: "Pizza may only contain mozzarella from buffalo milk, otherwise no 'traditional label'!"
As if the average Italian will still be able to afford pizza when the economy runs on AI.
(But hey - at least give them real buffalo milk during their digital poverty.)
5. Germany: "New legislation for the correct waste separation of coffee capsules!"
While tens of thousands of factory workers will soon be replaced by machines.
(Sorting by metal, , plastic... and socially redundant.)
6. US (under Trump): "Stop DEI programs, they undermine 'biological truth'"
Meanwhile, no one wants to think about how millions of Americans will soon have to live without access to work, care, or food.
(But it's nice that it's 'biologically' correct while people are becoming homeless en masse.)
7. EU AI rules: "Your AI may not show discrimination on paper"
But setting up a fair system that compensates people who lose their livelihood due to AI? We'll come back to that later, after the lunch break of the working group "Ethical Transparency Paragraph Documentation Committee." (Progress must of course be properly regulated ... with a label on it. Like everything in the EU must be labeled)
Bonus: The international summit on "Responsible Tech"
World leaders fly with private jets, which is so justifiable in these times of major climate problems, to a conference on sustainable technology and ethical AI. There, they all happily sign a non-binding declaration of intent to "continue to talk together again" about inclusive solutions... but not until sometime in 2032.
(It would almost be laughable if reality were not so sad. Technology and AI do not wait)
In other words: AI runs ahead, the systems lag for 20 years.
New jobs? Yes indeed... for a handful of people
If you ever talk about this, and also from the government, you hear it coming back every time. "Jobs are disappearing, but new ones are also emerging!"
That sounds hopeful, right?
Until you realize that these new jobs are usually not meant for the masses.
They require technical expertise, specific skills, access to technology, and often a good dose of capital or luck. In short, these jobs are for a select group of people, but certainly not for the vast majority.
What is left for the majority?
For those who earn their living with care, logistics, administration, crafts, service work, art, or education?
Spoiler: not much. And we all know that.
First painful, then dangerous
And now we come to the core of my question, because what happens when billions of people lose their place in the economic system?
First comes the pain. Existential uncertainty. Poverty. Stress. The feeling that you are failing, while you have just been optimized away.
Then comes the anger. The despair. And finally comes ... The uprising.
If billions of people worldwide lose their place in the economic system, you can almost certainly predict that the next war will not be about land, oil, or religion. **The next major crisis will be about something much more fundamental: the right to exist.
People who no longer feel heard. No longer seen. People who are no longer needed.
People who have nothing left to lose because they have already lost everything.
But maybe we will all get a basic income soon?
That could be a solution, and in theory, it could also be possible. Technology can yield so much that we could distribute it fairly. And in that theory, a universal basic income could solve everything. But let's be honest, does anyone believe that the billions generated by technology, AI, data, and robotics will soon be voluntarily redistributed to everyone? Does anyone believe in fairy tales anymore?
As long as power and capital remain in the hands of a small group that has no interest in change, basic income will remain a nice idea in policy reports.
And now?
What then? Will we become craftsmen again? Will we live locally, exchange, and become self-sufficient? Maybe. Maybe that is necessary, too bad not everyone has the space for it. Maybe value will arise again in human presence, attention, creativity, and contact.
But that will not happen automatically. It will be accompanied by loss, chaos, and a great deal of social unrest. In the last decades, we have built a system that runs on earning money with labor. And now we have reached the point with technology that we say: "Sorry, we no longer need your labor."
I have a question, who has the answer?
I don't have any ready-made answers, just one question:
How do we pay for our groceries when we are declared redundant by a world that is spinning faster than we can keep up?
And what happens… when we collectively realize that we are losing our livelihood?