alt Hacker NewsWhy is it depressing? Personally, unless the alternative is literally starving, I wouldn't want to do a job that a robot could do instead just so that I could be kept busy. That sounds like an insult to human dignity tbh.
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Is it an insult to human dignity? Let’s go through the thought process.
Commodities are used in an enterprise. Some of the commodities are labor. That labor commodity does work. Involving automation. Eventually (so we are told) those labor commodities manage to automate some forms of labor. Making those other labor commodities redundant.
The labor commodities are discarded. Because why (sigh) use a cart when you now have a car? And you don’t even own a horse.
All of the above is presumably not an insult to human dignity. No. The insult to human dignity is being “kept busy” instead of letting billionaires hoard automation made through human labor.
Of course the real solution is not busywork. But the part about busywork was not on the top of my mind with regards to dignity in this context.
> Personally, unless the alternative is literally starving,
To put a fine point on it, yeah? Ultimately.
That's how capitalism works. It doesn't matter if your job is useful but if you don't do anything, you don't get money.
More people without jobs will be a heavy burden on social security systems, so in the end it's literally about starving.
You know what is an insult? Supermarket on my street putting on display sloppy ads with ramen bowl that has 3 different thickness chopsticks and cartoon characters with scrambled faces. Now that is an insult, because there was a human being doing that job, and I am sure there was a great "productivity boost" related to that change.
I am a heavy AI user myself, and sure as hell I am not putting my foot in that place again.