As the CEO of both Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk is pretty much leading the private technological revolution. The dude is trying to get us to Mars, and when he takes the time out from building space rockets, I guess we should be inclined to hear him out.
One of the greatest societal fears we’re dealing with now is the fact that robots are going to inevitably take our jobs… and whilst that might make sense in several automated industries, it’s getting to the point now where self-serving checkouts and self-driving cars are just an established norm. Research is being carried out to carve out a path for robots to recreate human creative expression, the last bastion of our existence before we succumb to our metal overlords.
We now have robots that can paint, write their own code and even create news stories. Whilst this is fascinating and cool, it’s also harrowing, but Elon has the solution. Recently he came out in support of merging with cyborgs, or at least some kind of artificial intelligence. Now whilst this might initially send you running to your wood fire and your coconut fibre jumpers, hear me out.
Artificial symbiosis will essentially be necessary in the future. Realistically, think about how much you rely on automation or A.I in your daily life. We’re starting to create an embedded neural lace in our daily activities, a helping hand that comes in the form of Personal Assistant Robots, Smart Phones and Computers. Think of the human brain like a CPU. We only have a limited amount of processing power, but with the power of A.I we can solve problems at lightning speed. We’d just be turning the physical technology we rely on into a biological asset of our body.
Picture a day where everybody is stripped of any technology. The artificial systems in place would take over! We’re not needed, and that’s scary, but we need to change our attitude towards that to move forward and benefit from it.
He used the example of TESLA, his own company who are creating autonomous cars. He believes his business will disrupt and displace society, and whilst self-driving cars could solve a lot of problems, they will inevitably be accepted by government and strip up to 15 percent of the global workforce of their jobs. Some people would look at that and say ‘well don’t do it then’ but again, hear me out.
To evolve as a species, we need to change our attitude about automation get over the hump of job alienation. People do jobs they don’t enjoy just for currency instead of gratification. If we automate the things nobody wants to do, won’t we have more time and money for our ambitions and passions? By combining this with universal basic incomes and creative jobs that satisfy your wildest desires, won’t everybody go to sleep wanting to wake up and do a shift the next day?
A Neural Brain Lace would mean everybody could work at a higher level, and we can start crafting a utopia that gives us more free time removing the need to spend 30% of our lives doing remedial tasks, which no one wants to do.