What I see in different shades of gray, from behind my reading glasses
MIT Sloan School of Management’s Erik Brynjolfsson & Andrew McAfree predict that impressive advances in technology have ominous consequences for jobs:
They believe that rapid technological change has been destroying jobs faster than it is creating them, contributing to the stagnation of median income and the growth of inequality in the United States. And, they suspect, something similar is happening in other technologically advanced countries.
Contrast the MIT Tech Review article wondering how a mass influx of robots affects human employment, to the International Labour Organisation’s report which warns of social unrest and growing unequality as number of unemployed people worldwide continues to grow.
Imagining the possible future scenarios for middle-class unemployment is a first step to considering ways in which we can preserve our quality of life given the robotic future that will meet us. Without doubt, robots can greatly improve many lives, offering everything from smart prosthetics to home care for the aging. But for humans, the robot future is a mixed bag. [MIT article]
“In advanced economies, unemployment spells have lengthened and more workers are becoming discouraged and dropping out of the labour market altogether. This not only has adverse consequences on individuals and their families, but also can weaken previously stable societies, as opportunities to advance in a good job and improve one’s standard of living become the exception rather than the rule” [ILO report]
But remember: none of this is cyberwar. It’s all espionage, something that’s been going on between countries ever since countries were invented. What moves public opinion is less the facts and more the rhetoric, and the rhetoric of war is what we’re hearing.
We need to damp down the rhetoric and—more importantly—stop believing the propaganda from those who profit from this Internet nationalism. Those who are beating the drums of cyberwar don’t have the best interests of society, or the Internet, at heart.