Well-being in an age of abundance

Our journey of about 200,000 years on this planet can simply be understood in terms of tools and techniques employed by us to either protect ourselves from mother nature or to change it to suit our purposes. Over the last 300 years or since the Industrial Revolution, this pace has quickened, and the tools got increasingly sophisticated. We as a species have largely succeeded, in no other time in history has the entire planet been so modified to be conducive to the comfort of one at the expense of so many others.

But the rise of machines, especially techniques like AI (Artificial Intelligence) have brought about a moment of reckoning in this journey. The rules have suddenly changed.

Up until now, our time and efforts went into building the tools – all automation in one way or the other went into either reducing physical efforts or giving us superhuman physical capabilities – still limited to the physical sphere. Now, with AI and other allied technologies we are starting to create intelligence that can in turn create the required tools to regulate our environment.

At least since the Industrial revolution in the 18th century, the wealth in the society by and large got distributed in the favor of the tool builders – folks building and controlling these tools garnered a much larger share compared to others. The reason simply being that these tools enhanced the physical capabilities of their owners thereby enabling them to extract more resources at a faster pace compared to those who did not have access to them. This can be categorized as an “Age of Scarcity”. People and societies had to invest a lot of their resources and time in building faster and better tools to be able to extract their fair share of resources.??

Now imagine the same scenario in the age of AI. All tools are commoditized and available to everyone at very low costs. Everyone can get what they want, pretty much instantaneously – the acquisition barrier no longer exists. Let us call this the “Age of Abundance”.? Work is long dead. Life spans have gone up significantly. There is nothing to do, at least not for the humans. A very small percentage, possibly 0.01% are uber rich – they probably have homes on different planets in the solar system and spend their time hopping between them. The remaining wealth is shared pretty much equally among the remaining 99.99% of the population. No one needs anything – everyone is comfortable. Now, as a species evolution has not prepared us for this. We have evolved in a scarcity driven world and our instincts are honed for grabbing as much as we possibly can. This cannot help us in this changed world – it is just a useless appendage.

Our mental models that have evolved over millennia will be rendered useless. The twin forces of competition and co-operation will no longer be relevant. All activities will necessarily be pleasure seeking as there will no longer be any survival related pressures. Remaining sane and focused will be a challenge. Mind health will be a priority.?

The post Industrial-revolution era was all about improving productivity, working as much as possible with an increasingly complex set of tools to outdo each other.? Health, both mind and body have been neglected – even worse this was worn as a badge of honor. This is coming to an end. In this “age of abundance” it is all about re-connecting to what makes us human in the first place and focusing on our mental and physical well-being. I think this age of AI (Artificial Intelligence) will enable this – finally let us be HUMAN again. Let us all be kind to ourselves and to each other. This is the only way we can successfully transition into this new world of abundance.