What’s coming up for us? Rethinking our jobs

An influential author changed my perspective about the human race, and my worldview in general. Before this swift change in my view, I thought capitalism was a monster which was founded to destroy people and economy. I believed that it was only for a few overly ambitious and powerful people, however this author changed my mind. After reading the Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind and Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, I discovered that we always decide whether aware or not which part of history are we playing in, convinced by our own arbitrary convictions, and more than that, knowledge itself is useless if we can’t get rid of biased and prejudices we may reproduce with the other, by this I mean the people who does not feet to our beliefs and expectations about life, every learning that we may not agree with automatically is disqualified and if we keep doing that we won’t be able to understand the world in all its ways and colors, that me a better description of reality, not just ours (reality).

I also realized that we invariably have to look at the whole picture, not just part of it, and then take the best of any production system and make improvements where the bad and good guys can’t be categorized that easily, whether it is capitalism or socialism, who is righ? depends on the ideology and the eye of the beholder.

By this, I don’t attempt to subjetivize the world and our human actions, as Franklin Roosevelt argued in a public speech on may 7, 1993 when the nation was facing a serious economic crisis… We were faced by a condition and not a theory. we face conditions. I’m pushing for a much broader comprehension about other cultures, their way of thinking and beliefs. The one that make us empathize and understand deeply, instead of judging and pointing out the negative parts of their convictions.

We are facing huge technological changes more accelerated than ever and we don’t really have much time to adapt, our aging process is another crucial factor in the first world country and the middle income in the developing countries life expectancy will grow exponentially, according the conference How can we age better? a Public Lectures & Events podcast “In 1950 there were 14 million people over the age of 80 globally, in 2080 that number is expected to be 7 hundred million, in Britain a child born today will live more than 90 years and more than 30% will reach a hundred”.

All of this development demonstrate that: the future is rapidly moving towards us… Technological advancement in the past a few decades has changed our lives forever. For example, Artificial intelligence (AI) is has been growing and overpassing us in productivity and efficiency. Technology has changed our lives so profoundly, that new generations do not want to slow it, but make it better and more efficient so we can reach to our needs almost instantly. And that’s where we’re heading…

Additionally, there’s another book influenced my view is by Rutger Bregman, a Dutch historian who wrote Utopia For Realists The Case For A Universal Income, Open Borders, And a 15 Hour Workweek , which blew my mind, it’s just another level of thinking. That’s real thinking because you dare to see things differently so you can push in a different direction, and usually for a better one. As Haruki Murakami said “If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking”. This approach applies to everything that we do in our lives.

This author proposes an interesting but much debated idea: giving money to the poor to improve not just their conditions, but also the entire societies’ wellbeing, this may sound foolish but when he supports this reasoning with data, suddenly it completely makes sense.

And again, the world is constantly changing, so are we. And our jobs are not an exception. Silicon Valley and China are putting everything they’ve got to develop Artificial Intelligence faster than ever, and this is not copycat material, they are innovative, they’re creating new tools beyond our imagination. Subsequently, let’s admit it, the machines are getting smarter and less complicated and are about to take over, and we can’t sit back and wait. We have to find ways about how machines can work to make people’s lives better.

We have to seek for avenues to improve our living conditions and adapt to circumstances we will have to face. For instance, Elon Musk is currently working in a project called Mars-One and intends to colonize the planet mars…and, it appears to be that he’s moving forward with this initiative.

The first crew will be sent in 2031. Our species is about to colonize other planets, so what will happen to us and our living conditions here on earth? -We don’t know that currently but we are about to find out soon. But what is certain is that walking away from this “inconvenience” won’t help us in anyway.

We have to look for better alternatives, as Steve Jobs once said at a Stanford commencement speech: clears out the old to make way for the new. Let’s find an equilibrium that allows us to live with dignity, the planet is being damaged and destroyed because our species is not taking care of the planet we live in, besides there are a lot of variables that we can’t control, but we can try to improve on the things that we have control.

A lot of issues are emerging nowadays; inequality, poverty, injustice, greed of the wealthy, lack of opportunities, lack of education, high unemployment and insufficient salaries… mainly in third world countries. The list goes on and on. But still, we need to keep working to improve whatever is at our reach, we have to choose between serving others and helping them to have a better lives or watch them fall apart.

I chose to challenge my mind and move to a more profound level of understanding and offer the world something different, something better. In Mexico, sometimes it is difficult to talk about Artificial Intelligence when we’re not an industrialized country, but we could start now, as South Korea did with their education system improving a lot, so could we.

We can improve labor conditions for people because we live in a globalized world which will likely to be the new way of life for long time. If we want to keep the option open, we grow together or we fall together. So, we have to make new political decisions and use them in work fields, develop strategies and think about the long term results, not only the short ones.

An other subject related with our future is what the internet is doing for us, a big question is if this powerful tool is working against or in our favor? this topic is leading thousand debates but more than lectures we need actions and jurisdiction over our personal data.

We may not know, but inside our own online privacy and personal google accounts we are giving away valuable information that many companies are using and selling, it’s not just Cambridge Analytica and Trump buying information of American citizens, it’s about Google, Facebook, Twitter other networks that are spying us, legally of course, but it does not change the fact that we are being hacked and used to make a lot of profits in our behalf.

Internet has to be regulated by our governments, and together our societies can make this happen, if we don’t push this reforms what could be the consequence in the next 50 years, if now days we are very dependent in technology, imagine how our world would be?

It’s time to rethink the way we want to live and work in this constant and unstoppable transformation, we spend more hours watching tv and working in front of a computer than investing with our loving ones. We still have a chance, we can do this, together we can make this planet a better place.

#Opinions #Evolving #Change #AI #Artificialintelligence