Advances in science and technology have led to growing concerns about job loss and unemployment. However, these changes can also be an opportunity for self-actualization. What direction should humans take in a mechanized future?
In the 21st century, humanity is living in a whirlwind of change. New scientific techniques and theories are published every day, and science and technology are making tremendous advances. People in the Middle Ages could never have imagined that they would be able to communicate with people on the other side of the world in real time through networks like the internet. Similarly, we don’t know what the future holds. Things like immortality and mass migration to Earth-type planets may become a reality in the not-too-distant future. And maybe even more. These things are becoming increasingly visible thanks to advances in science and technology.
However, advances in science and technology are not always viewed in a positive light. For example, if immortality becomes a reality, there could be ethical issues with population growth. As such, many people are concerned about the dark side of scientific and technological advances. One of the biggest concerns is the issue of jobs and unemployment.
As many jobs, such as mail carriers and factory workers, have become mechanized and automated, people who used to do them have lost their jobs. The menial labor tasks that humans used to do can now be done faster and more accurately by machines that can type in simple codes. With machines that can make things faster and more accurately and work tirelessly, people no longer see a reason to dedicate human resources to menial labor. Moreover, using humans for menial tasks incurs additional costs for labor and maintaining working conditions. Eventually, most factories and menial jobs were replaced by machines. While this made the work more efficient, the people who did it lost their jobs and became unemployed.
This loss of jobs is not just a problem for people who used to work in manual labor. Young people who need to enter the workforce now need to find jobs that require complex and difficult tasks that machines can’t do. Therefore, young people must compete for higher education, and since complex and difficult jobs require relatively fewer people, higher education does not necessarily guarantee a job. They have to compete with other highly educated people like themselves to get a job.
Advances in science and technology have changed the structure of jobs, and it takes a lot of effort to adapt to this structure and survive the competition. If a person is unable to find a job due to lack of competition, he or she is bound to become unemployed. People who are concerned about the dark side of scientific and technological development believe that only a few people will be able to win the competition and get jobs, and the rest will be unemployed and live a hard life. I disagree with this opinion. It simply comes from the idea that if you don’t work, you don’t earn money, which means you can’t survive in a capitalist society. I believe that people who hold this view have lost sight of the original meaning of work. Therefore, I would like to talk about the fundamental reasons why people work and outline how society will change in the future.
In our current society, most people work and live on the income they earn. On the other hand, those who don’t work live on a small amount of money from the state. It’s very difficult to live on this small amount of money. Living in such a society, it’s easy to think that it’s hard to live without work. But we need to rethink why we work, why we have jobs, and how society works.
Humans basically need food to survive. Early human societies were self-sufficient in this regard. But different people are good at different things, and people naturally realize that they’re more efficient when they do what they’re good at. Some people were good at making clothes, some were good at hunting, some were good at building houses, and so on, and humans began to divide up their labor. People traded with others to fulfill their needs, and money was invented to make this trade more equitable and easier. People became more and more efficient, doing what they were good at and trading their resources for the rest of life’s needs. Along the way, technology developed in certain areas, and humans organized themselves into societies and built the civilizations we know today. Of course, this structure doesn’t explain everything about human society, but it’s a good way to summarize how humans live in society: we work to get what we need to survive.
But now things are different: we’re in an era where machines can produce the necessities of life for us. Machines can’t provide everything we need yet, but in the not-too-distant future, they’ll be able to do so without human intervention. So, why do we need to work in this changed society? The answer is self-actualization. It means that we no longer need to work to survive or earn money. We all have goals we want to achieve. No matter how big or small they are. Some may want to unlock the secrets of the universe, while others may want to empower the world with their music. But in the past, you may have had to put these self-actualization goals on the back burner to get what you need to survive with limited resources. For example, consider working part-time at a convenience store. Sure, working at a convenience store and selling things could be a way of self-actualization. But I don’t see anyone doing that, at least not in my circle of friends. Working part-time at a convenience store doesn’t require that much skill, nor does it require a high level of education. For this reason, people find it easy to work in convenience stores, and they get paid for their work. Some people will use the money they earn from working at a convenience store to buy necessities, eat, and pay rent. But what would happen if people no longer needed to buy the things they need to live and eat? What would happen if the machines that run the entire human society provided them with goods, food, and housing? In other words, would people work if their basic needs were taken care of?
Many people might think that if they were provided with the things they need to live, they wouldn’t work. But I don’t think so. As I said above, we all have goals we want to achieve in our lives, and we all have the desire to fulfill those goals. Moreover, the need for self-actualization would be even greater if there was a guarantee of food. “Although Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is not absolute, it shows that humans want to achieve their goals once their basic needs are met. Therefore, I believe that human beings will strive for self-actualization when they are in a situation where they are guaranteed food and can do what they want to do.
I think people are most efficient when they do what they want to do. If people strive for what they want to do, human society will be much more advanced than it is now. In fact, there would be no jobs problem as suggested by those who are concerned about the advancement of science and technology. Their concern is not that people won’t be able to work, but that they won’t be able to find a reason to live. If humans can have their sustenance provided by machines, of course, there will be people who do nothing for a while. But eventually they will get tired of it and find something they want to do, and they will do it. Machines are not yet capable of producing everything that is essential to human life, but the fact that many jobs are being replaced by machines suggests that the future we fear is not far off. Everyone has dreams and goals. I think a society where we can achieve those dreams and goals without worrying about them is the kind of society we should aim for. In that sense, the replacement of menial labor and other jobs by machines is not something we should worry about. I think that the human form that only aimed for money should disappear.
