I am putting the finishing touches to a
book about what is likely to happen after the corona virus
has done its worst.
As far as I can tell we are living in an artificial society,
doing outmoded things simply because our life styles cant
keep up with the advances of technology.
Certain events tend to force us to start using that advanced
technology. There are many ways in which the corona virus is
likely to force that change.
This is an excerpt from a chapter in that new book. I will
be adding a few more excerpts from the book over the course
of the next few weeks. I hope you enjoy.
* * * * *
I maintain that if robots can be programmed to play
football, they can also be programmed to be nurses, or
nineyty-nine percent of the jobs out there presently being
done with various grades of efficiency (or inefficiency) by
humans.
If they cant be done well enough as of 2020 when I am
writing this, it wont be long before they can.
What we have done is invent help-mates to assist us with our
work-load. We have over the years improved those help-mates
to such an extent that we have made them so good at their
jobs they can now do that work without our help, and in
terms of the work-place, we have largely made ourselves
redundant.
We need a new paradigm to underpin our reason for living. We
need to redefine what we are here for,
What's your purpose in life, given that you really aren't
needed to go to work because a computer can do it better and
faster than you can?
Somewhere along the line such a revaluation is going to have
to be made. And maybe some decision is going to be forced on
us by something like the corona virus.
Such a change cant possibly take place over-night.
You could say that such a change is being (temporarily)
forced on us overnight right now. (I am writing this in
April 2020.)
What is more likely to happen is a gradual change.
Let's start with the simple jobs, like standard office work.
What happens at the moment (or would happen if we were not
under a curfew which we politely call a lockdown)?
Jim and Joan get up at seven o'clock, go through their
morning routines, run for the bus, and chug slowly,
painfully, and irritably, into work. The person next to them
has a cold and keeps sniffing and occasionally sneezing.
Two days later Jim and Joan have raging colds.
But I digress. Or do I?
They get to work. They chat to their work-mates, and do a
spot of work. That work is done sitting at a desk in front
of a computer.
At lunch time they walk to a local lunch takeaway, pay an
exorbitant price for a couple of rolls and a plastic cup
containing something labelled tea.
The afternoon is spent once again in front of the company
computer.
Five o'clock comes round, and our pair rush for the bus, and
get carried almost home.
It's raining, and the last ten minute walk soaks them.
The get indoors, change, and flop.
Can we perhaps re-write this sordid little story?
Jim and Joan get up at eight o'clock, have a leisurely
breakfast, and switch on their respective computers. They
link into the company network, and do exactly the same job
they would have done if they had gone into the office.
The can stop for lunch, which they can have in their own
kitchen, and they have a more flexible approach to when they
stop and start.
They don't have to run for a bus. They don't need to get wet
or catch a cold. They don't have to pay over the odds for
lunch, or buy a travel-card.
The employer is over the moon. The company no longer has to
buy or more likely lease a twenty storey office block to
house people that don't need to be in that particular
location, thus saving millions.
They no longer have to supply all the things that government
regulations require them to supply to keep their staff
happy.
Why, for pity's sake, why do we need office blocks?
The obvious answer to that question is that we don’t.
Ninety-nine per cent of all these workers can stay at home,
which is exactly what is happening across the country at the
moment.
The biggest bunch of office workers can be organised from
one room, and kept together by the office computer network.
What's the problem?
Achieve that move and we are ready to make the next move.