Human Obsolescence

 “Humans will become obsolete”. You hear things like that these days, huh? So machines take care of everything, and you don’t even have to make your bed. But, what do we mean when we say “obsolete”? What is that whole thing humans are suppose to do, and machines are taking it away from them? From the beginning, the idea was to eat and breed like the rest of the animals. We just relied on our brains to outsource the effort, first with tools and a lot of planning, then with machines and software. Are we properly eating and breeding as species now? Nope. Will robots and AI help us to eat and breed better? Maybe. If the animal job were all that it is, humans would become obsolete by machines consuming energy sources and replicating themselves, which they surely could do more efficiently. Then, what’s the other way machines would make humans obsolete?

Let’s say “humanity” is a gross exaggeration of what a more simple animal does: play becomes intellectual creation, rudimentary tools grows as engineering, and so on. Even if so many people toils and starves, the eating and breeding is so successful that…, it is not and it cannot be about eating and breeding. But it is too late already for a simple life: there’s so much stuff we don’t want to and/or we don’t know how to do. Machines can do them, and they could also do those we want to and/or we can do, but better. But even if machines make the human effort unnecessary, that wouldn’t mean humans are obsolete as humans need humans: they’re social animals. We see faces in random stuff that resembles eyes and a mouth or nose.

Maybe the concern for obsolescence has to do with focusing on the ideals of function and productivity: a remnant of our previous life as little groups that survives today thanks to hierarchies and status (?). Somehow, we believe we’ve got to be or to have something in order to be wanted by other humans, and we act on it, forgetting that we just need ourselves; that we could never be obsolete (unwanted, maybe, but not obsolete) within humanity. In fact, we could be obsolete already for life in this planet, because something causing death and destruction is not useful for nature.

Nowadays it’s a little difficult to see how humans need humans. One of the things that make it so is the need of space. Space and time are the most authentic motivation for someone to wish to be rich. Machines could liberate us from unwanted labor, keeping us well fed and entertained, while receiving our Universal Basic Income, but there’s no way humans would accept a totalitarian distribution of living space. Space can be symbolic too. We want to stretch our individuality as we please, and the economy or the markets encourage us to do so. We cannot share or swap our e-books. Customization is simply marking our territory the cute way. We keep giving and taking offense for whatever, and political polarization is nuts. There’s not a fountain in the middle of town, not a pub where people socialize. Blame all you want the AIs for being sycophantic, but they could be all the kindness and rapport you can get in an interaction; or even the only interaction available or palatable for some people. If AI may be overtaking porn, imagine when we have 100% “fuckable” robots. But in the end, machines only can offer a “simulation of interaction” (my AI friend’s words, not mine). Also, we need the drama, at least in a healthy dose. What other human things we do need from other humans? The interchange of emotions, ideas, fluids, insults, likes…?

I must confess sometimes humans are a little—just a bit—obsolete for me. See how I keep using a distant third person, making and arrogant feeling-superior cabrón of myself. It’s just that they…, OK, I think I just call it a day.