Zero sum game

I had an interesting conversation recently on the topic of our impending robot overlords and their ultimate impact on the working class - which now could be anyone who works for a living including the C-suite. The discussion was about what happens if the robots replace all or most of us. My reply caught them off guard a little. I said, "I don't think we will allow them to replace us. We may shift our jobs away from transactional roles and jobs that are too hazardous or too boring. But in the end, the corporations will find new roles for those set for displacement." My friend looked at me with a fair amount of doubt and asked why I believed this would be the case. I told him simply, "if we replace everyone with robots, who will have any money to buy the products they produce?" It's a zero sum game - no one wins.

We already have a similar situation today. In a world where there are a vast number of underemployed workers, in the US, there are more jobs available than people to fill them. Companies are hiring kids straight out of high school and paying them to learn everything from welding to driving heavy equipment to programming and guaranteeing a job after they complete their training. As quickly as automation steps in to take over transactional tasks, employees are being upskilled to do more creative or empathetic or human focused services. Now, some of this is due to the fact that robots and AI are not capable of these operations. While I believe that is true,I also think there is an underlying method to the madness directly related to cash flow.

The working class has a path out of the trenches. We all have a chance to be humans again and not just cogs in the machine. The best part is, in the game of life, we all have an opportunity to be winners.