Is AI Leading Us Into a World of Abundance or Is It Already Here?
Are we seeking a solution to a problem we don’t have?
I’ve noticed an interesting trend, well, it’s new to me and I think it shows a shift that might, just might, be a whispering of hope that we all need to hold on to.
Long after the ‘abundance’ spirituality movement had its time in the sun and got so overused it became an example of the toxic positivity brigade, the science and tech ‘gurus are now using the term in reference to our near future, and it’s started me thinking.
Yes, as a term it got cliched and along with the ‘empaths’ and ‘narcissists’ hiding under the thin mask of every second person, became something most of rolled our eyes at, but isn’t it also the notion so many people have been craving since the written word started taking notes?
The idea of a heaven universally seems to be a place or a state in which we no longer have to worry, strive, or live without. Is that not what we mean when we speak of true abundance? The idea that there is enough of everything for everyone, that no one need go without or live a life of struggle? If you listen to Peter Diamandis and other leaders of tech and futuristic thinking who are positive about AI and where advances are leading us, then a version of ‘heaven’ could be achieved in our lifetimes.
“This means a future of abundance. A future where there is no poverty, where people can have whatever they want in terms of goods and services.” — Elon Musk
I’m not sure I can be fully on board with their belief, as for me I see the years in between as full of such huge disruption and change on a global scale to the ways in which we work, educate, care for our health, and move through our relationships. The results of change can be hugely positive but the experience of it is often uncomfortable to say the least.
And yet this word rings out abundance. It is a promise of so much more than we feel like we already have and as I ruminated on it, that became the sticking point… what we think we have right now as opposed to what we might have.
There is often a dissonance between what we think and feel and the factual reality of something. If I have an afternoon to get work done, in my mind I’ll imagine the dozens of articles I could write, as well as all the odd jobs I could probably get done around the house. Realistically that obviously won’t be achievable, but I’ll still feel frustrated and maybe even a little disappointed in myself by the end of the day.
So then, is there a way to measure the reality of our present abundance?
In the book The Rational Optimist, Matthew Ridley looked at the price paid for an hour of light as an example of a unit of measure. His idea being that the monetary cost of an hour of light has changed wildly over the centuries, to the point that as we’ve moved from candles to lamps and then to light bulbs, the cost of an hour of light is 20,000 times cheaper than in 1300AD!
Futurists believe that AI and other technological advances will continue this trend, cleaning clothes will take minutes instead of hours down by the stream for example, farming will become automated, as will high speed transportation and many other areas of life.
But the important pause in this rush forwards is the question, what did we use all that extra time for once we got it over the last few decades? Did it better our health and lifestyles? Or did we simply fill the spaces?
Whether you are someone who is positive about the future technology is leading us into or not, deciding what we are working for is of central importance. If we are doing more to acquire more, which in turn will help us to do more, then we are on a hamster wheel too big for us to see clearly or get off of.
I remember being in my early twenties, the luxury of having a good income, and a fun life full of autonomy and no dependents. I could travel, I could buy what I wanted and importantly spend my time how I saw fit.
One week I was asked, yet again, to do some overtime and I sat down to work out how much extra I would earn. It was the first time I felt the sting of an hourly rate of pay. The first time I really heard the truth in it, that this is amount was what someone had decided an hour of my life was worth. What if I died tomorrow, I thought, what would one more day be worth to me?
These are not helpful thoughts for someone new to the workforce to have, it instantly became very difficult for me to take my job very seriously outside of a means to an end, especially as they clearly valued my time as worth so much less than I did. Time has been my obsession from a young age, and the understanding that it is the only truly finite thing we have has always haunted me.
So, I ask you, if we as a society, have put all our collective wisdom to making that hour of light 20,000 times cheaper what are you using it for?