Human Liberation: Automation

I'm sure I will get a ton of flack for this but I am a GIANT proponent of automation. I am not an overlord, nor am I heartless or uncaring. In fact, I am quite the opposite, a solopreneur who has to labor daily to make his business thrive. I have daily challenges and face human beings who have moods, opinions and sensitivities. Yet, I want to see more automation, not less. I'll give you three reasons why, one historical, one business and one humane.

I am the descendent of enslaved Africans imported to America. My forebears were forcefully taken, brutally beaten and animalistically assigned to death camps (often referred to as "plantations"). This labor force was considered highly capable, highly reliable and highly adaptable. It built the foundation of financial success for the United States, a broad base that remains hundreds of years after the despicable and peculiar institution was formally abolished. From this base, I argue cheap labor stifled innovation and technological advancement. Rather than invent their way out of poverty, our American forebears used war and barbarity as their primary means. In business, that represented an opportunity cost. The same energy that was used for savagery could have been used for invention. In fact, in some parts of America it was used that way, and several small communities were enlightened by the pursuit. But in my opinion, enslaving Africans in America was the biggest impediment to technological advancement the nation could have ever cursed itself to utilize. Imagine the power of the cotton gin if it had been married to further technologies rather than to enslaved human beings. Imagine if the steam engine had replaced human chattel in the plowing of fields as soon as it was able to be mass produced. Imagine the power of an economy that saw the immediacy of broad adoption of mechanical means of planting, cultivating and harvesting hardy and delicate crops. What a nation we would have been!

That nation would have developed more than machines, however. It would have developed business processes and science to supplant the ongoing inefficiency of repeated human drudgery with robots, plants that could be more easily harvested by machines, soils that could support the weight of machines, perhaps even new and improved fertilizers and stabilizers to allow machines to recognize fruits and vegetables more effectively. Every element of the business of agriculture and thus the use of those products from the fields would have been more efficient. Machines in the 19th century were already fantastically capable of reducing repetitive human work, but their adoption was limited by "cheap labor". Imagine if the nation had seen the industrial revolution as a way to replace said "cheap labor" with an inexhaustible supply of mechanical force. Imagine how powerful a nation would be when its business focused on finding the best and most efficient means to bring goods to market. Imagine how the human mind would be more capable of innovation and creativity when not locked in a cycle of coercion, violence and poverty. Imagine the liberation of all people to use their most human ability to advance science, industry, art and culture!

Automation should have replaced migrant workers, enslaved Africans, and every menial repetitive task decades ago. The promises of the industrial revolution were supposed to do that. And only in fantasies like Star Trek and Star Wars do we see the potential of automation to replace the misuse of human ingenuity so present in our daily lives. We have become numb to the thought that a human being should NEVER have to flip a burger at a fast food restaurant, staff a toll booth, or paint a simple wall. Not when we could have had machines doing all those things and re-task that human "capital" to higher pursuits. In fact, I would argue our education system would be vastly different knowing that we wouldn't have to place human beings in factories, in fields, and in offices en masse. Our education could instead be used to deepen our understanding of ethics and philosophy, explore the cosmos, plumb the depths of the ocean, perhaps even aim for the center of the earth a la Jules Verne. From an early age, knowing we aren't simply going to work at some repetitive, mindless task, we could raise our children to pursue their highest calling and we could even aspire to greatness we can't imagine today. Automation is the liberating element that empowers all humanity to be more...human.

My argument for automation is purely speculative. That is intentional. But it is also important because many people are about to face displacement due to machines. And a society that is encouraging automation should be encouraging the redirection of human talent toward new pursuits. Every job taken over by automation represents a human mind freed from drudgery, and with support, education and training, a talent that can advance our society. If we fear automation will take "jobs" from humans without seeing that those jobs were never right for humans in the first place, we're going to repeat the mistakes of the past on a scale we've never seen. Displaced workers represent the most under-utilized resource for business in the 21st century. And we need to start seriously thinking about the policies and practices to tap the potential of those minds and hands. Rather than simply relegate them to history, I believe and will endeavor to transform that unleashed humanity into the next multi-billion dollar enterprise. I hope automation, coupled with humane policies and resource allocation, becomes the single greatest liberator in human history.