What is common between the following - Flying a plane, Medical diagnosis, Driving a car, Building stuff, Reading? Think about it and you should get it. In the meanwhile, here's another list - Autopilot, WebMD, Self-driving Cars, 3D printers, Message readers. This list can actually be summed up in a single word - automation. And that is also what is common to the items listed first. We are living in the era of unprecedented automation and while it is good, I am trying to wrap my head around where this will lead us eventually.
I remember reading somewhere that the basic necessities in life are the trifecta of roti, kapada and makaan (for the hindi challenged out there, it is food, clothing and shelter) and much of human endeavor on a day to day basis is either to possess these, safeguard these or supplement these. When human endeavor which goes towards these are automated, when every possible avenue of human exertion is automated, because we can, what will the humans do?
The current pace of this conversion is, to put it mildly, disconcerting. Disconcerting because I am trying to think what I will do next to keep myself busy and am drawing a blank. If I don't have to work to produce food, get it to my place of living and cook it, if I don't have to put in any effort to design and build my place of living, if I don't have to worry about learning how to read because stuff is read to me, if I don't have to worry about remembering stuff because data storage, retrieval and notifications will call them out, if I don't have to walk or run because we have vehicles for transportation and if I don't have to learn to drive or ride because the vehicles do it by themselves, if I don't need a proper voice for singing because auto tune takes care of it, if I don't need to learn how to play an instrument because 'electronic music' ... well I guess you get me drift.
It is intrinsic to our way of thinking to do things in the most efficient way possible because usually that also happens to be the easiest. But we are increasingly finding out that the major road-block to getting things done in the most efficient manner possible is us, humans. And we appear to be in a tearaway hurry to remove this inefficiency from our daily life. I am just wondering what the definition of "life" would be when we reach that goal.
