Why work?
Humans need not apply—but that's a good thing, I promise
1
Doing work is the worst. Our brains are wired to prefer doing easy things, probably so we don’t over-exert or starve ourselves chasing wooly mammoths.
This primal tendency, like so many others, has stuck with us into the modern age, and as quick, easy entertainment becomes more accessible, we see less and less reason to focus on hard tasks.
There are still quite a few people who dedicate themselves to one goal or another—out of a need to advance in order to survive, in many cases—but there’s no reason this should be the case. Humans have no inherent need for labor, only a societal one, long ago exacerbated by the agricultural revolution.
2
The shift from hunter-gathering to farming and society-building was substantial, and caused populations to explode, a select few to prosper, and innovation to accelerate.
However, there are much darker narratives surrounding the agricultural revolution, expounded by the super-awesome Yuval Noah Harari for one, which claim that it didn’t spur an increase in overall wellbeing—in fact, it caused the very opposite.
According to Harari’s book, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, the agricultural revolution was far from an inevitable step in our development. In fact, it made little sense—farming is much harder, more backbreaking work than hunting, and our increased proximity to animals and population density led to the proliferation of dangerous diseases.
So why on Earth would we go through such a change?
In fact, Harari argues that wheat played a major role. As the ice age receded and rainfall increased, grains like wheat began to spread. We saw all this wheat and started eating more of it, carrying leftovers back home with us and dropping seeds along the way.
We also began to burn clearings into forests to attract animals, simultaneously creating environments far more conducive to wheat’s growth. Nomadic tribes began to settle in wheat-heavy areas, and to support their growing populations began to store and cultivate wheat, innovating solely around its farming.
This is when the idea of ‘work’ really took off.
3
Throughout the medieval period, labor defined history. Social classes were mostly decided based on ownership of land, lords controlling vast properties and fields where serfs would toil for little reward.
The industrial revolutions only furthered these dynamics. While overall standard of living shot up like never before, inequality grew even faster. The ‘means of production’ became the focal point of economic theory and class struggle as Karl Marx’s socialist ideology spread.
Some argued these means should remain with property owners, while others advocated for their distribution among the people. It would be borderline impossible to find even a crackpot theory advocating that they be taken out of human hands entirely.
However, this inane possibility may soon become reality with the advent of general-purpose artificial intelligence.
First, however, we must address why it feels so odd to consider giving up human labor entirely.
4
The idea of meritocracy has become the norm, the pride, even, of modern American society. The smartest and hardest working rise to the top, accumulating wealth and power in line with the value they provide to society and to everyone’s lives.
It’s considered honorable to work hard, study hard, and earn one’s way into the top universities, top internships, top financial, legal, and medical institutions. The idea of proving oneself worthy has, in fact, superseded any concern for physical or mental health, or even for value to society as a whole.
High school students pull all-nighters in order to earn spots in the most prestigious universities where they can take impossibly difficult classes in order to prove themselves worthy of the top law, medical, or graduate schools, where they only push themselves further.
Once a highly accomplished young person enters the workforce, however, the stress doesn’t stop. Medical interns still work ridiculous hours for laughable pay, high-end lawyers and investment bankers also work around the clock, though get considerably higher salaries for considerably more useless work.
This all ignoring the inherent inequalities and systemic injustices plaguing the pathway at all its levels.
Working hard is supposed to earn one a virtuous, comfortable, well-off life, but only leads to further obligation, stress, and hard work, though often with much higher compensation. Of course this compensation is all too often reserved for the children of the wealthy, and the white males who still disproportionately dominate business, law, and medicine.
5
The point of the above is simply to express the contempt I feel for our existing systems, where success is punishing to those who’ve attained it, and even more so to those who fall short through no fault of their own.
The American system of labor, and in fact the concept of work itself, is defined by game theoretic races to the bottom. It’s a hodgepodge of individual incentives and luck built without humanity’s best interest in mind.
So, assuming a truly perfectly aligned general-purpose AI could ever exist (a big assumption for sure), I would have absolutely no problem handing over the reins of our economy, our means of production, allowing humans to pursue the higher pleasures which give our lives true meaning.
Hopefully, we’ll soon see that humans need not apply.
Thanks for reading.