Words&Dirt

“‘There are only two industries. This has always been true,’ said Madame Ping, enfolding a lovely porcelain teacup in her withered fingers, the two-inch fingernails interleaving neatly like the pinions of a raptor folding its wings after a long hard day of cruising the thermals. ‘There is the industry of things, and the industry of entertainment. The industry of things comes first. It keeps us alive. But making things is easy now that we have the Feed. This is not a very interesting business anymore.

‘After people have the things they need to live, everything else is entertainment. Everything. This is Madame Ping’s business.’”

––The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer, by Neal Stephenson, loc. 6207

“Advancing information technology is pushing us toward a tipping point that is poised to ultimately make the entire economy less labor-intensive. However, that transition won’t necessarily unfold in a uniform or predictable way. Two sectors in particular––higher education and health care––have, so far, been highly resistant to the kind of disruption that is already becoming evident in the broader economy. The irony is that the failure of technology to transform these sectors could amplify its negative consequences elsewhere, as the costs of health care and education become ever more burdensome.

Technology, of course, will not shape the future in isolation. Rather, it will intertwine with other major societal and environmental challenges such as an aging population, climate change, and resource depletion. It’s often predicted that a shortage of workers will eventually develop as the baby boom generation exits the workforce, effectively counterbalancing––or perhaps even overwhelming––any impact from automation. Rapid innovation is typically framed purely as a countervailing force with the potential to minimize, or even reverse, the stress we put on the environment. However, as we’ll see, many of these assumptions rest on uncertain foundations: the story is sure to be far more complicated. Indeed, the frightening reality is that if we don’t recognize and adapt to the implications of advancing technology, we may face the prospect of a ‘perfect storm’ where the impacts from soaring inequality, technological unemployment, and climate change unfold roughly in parallel, and in some ways amplify and reinforce each other.

In Silicon Valley the phrase ‘disruptive technology’ is tossed around on a casual basis. No one doubts that technology has the power to devastate entire industries and upend specific sectors of the economy and job market. The question I will ask in this book is bigger: Can accelerating technology disrupt our entire system to the point where a fundamental restructuring may be required if prosperity is to continue?”

––Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future, by Martin Ford, pg. xvii-xviii