How technology changed my life

Has technology changed my job? One has to ask: is this the right question, or should it be “how technology changed my life”? That human work is continuously affected by technical “progress” and its applications is a truism. The Luddites protests were motivated by just that reality: the invention, and adoption by loom owners, of the mechanical looms, spelt the disappearance of  their work and hence their ability to earn a living, feed their children and themselves.

That was in the nineteenth century, and since there has been a continuous stream of examples, from automation in manufacturing, in farming (the agro-industrial revolution), the assembly robots in the car industry, and the universal presence of computers in offices, gradually displacing “clerical” jobs. Today the threat is from the so-called artificial intelligence, that, it is said, will replace all human work by automated algorithms.

The blind adoption of  “new” technology also means alienation

Thus the effect of technology on human work is obvious. What is less obvious is the way this affects human life generally, society, social behaviour, and relations between people. In my case, as a “technologist”, the invention of the transistor and its microelectronic spinoff set a permanent challenge, to update my skills, learn new methods of work, convert myself several times within a few decades. In some way, the blind adoption of  “new” technology also means alienation, the negation of what we learnt, and the imposition of a way of life that some of us, perhaps many of us, find hostile or even repugnant. Yet humans do adapt, even against their better judgement.

Technology and human health

One way to measure the impact of technology on work and society is to look at how human health is affected. It can be argued that technology can also be a factor of safety and well being at work. As an example the development of new display technologies has led arguably to more comfortable and safer (ergonomic) use. Yet the adoption of visual displays has also led to numerous problems, resulting from people sitting for long hours in front of these screens, for example back pain and sight’s impairment.

Beyond sedentary office work, the consequences for public well being of the various transport revolutions are plain to observe. For example the adoption in the sixties, in the US and Europe, of extremely heavy (five or six axles) goods vehicles had very visible and audible consequences for road repairs, traffic noise, and of course air pollution. Just think of six axles juggernauts driven at full speed through hitherto peaceful villages, day and night. The current evolution, although tentative, toward electric vehicles may similarly impact health and public wellbeing, in ways their promoters may not have yet seriously considered. 

Future of work

Going back to my personal experience, the successive waves of technological changes not only forced me to adapt to new ways of working, transformed the industries I worked in, but ultimately destroyed them. Admittedly the latter was not always simply a result of the technology, but, rather, of decisions made by these businesses to convert to other activities, considered presumably more profitable, or more attractive for reasons unrelated to the technology. The conversion of entire industrial areas, such as for example Detroit in the US, once upon a time the miracle cradle of the automobile industry, into rust belts and disaster areas, is a well documented history.

One observation in that respect is that the economic changes initially enabled by technology usually continue for other reasons, be they geographical, financial or political. The consequences of technology on individuals and entire communities cannot be limited to the sole technology logic, many other factors are at play. We can be confident that more changes, some of them radical, are on the horizon. Some writers have discussed the “future of work”, as the threats to the model inherited from the early industrial revolution are now in evidence. The philosophical consequences of these changes are too vast a subject for this post.

Picture: A RIOTING MOB OF LUDDITES, BRITISH WORKERS WHO WERE OPPOSED TO INCREASING MECHANIZATION OF JOBS.