Living Poetry

And in regards to the concerns over whether AI will lead to millions upon millions of job losses, the likelier prospect is that AI will transform jobs. What we are engaging in now – namely, teaching machines what they need to know and teaching them what they need to learn and in turn inserting our data and intellectual inputs into AI – is the future of work and of the economy. Hence, everything from business and politics and government to diplomacy, defense, and academia will be transformed as a result of AI and as a result of what we are doing at the moment, namely, inserting our data and our inputs into AI and teaching the machines what they need to know about the social world of us human beings. As one business expert argued, it is all about data nowadays. And even if some of the innovators and creators of today’s novel technological tools regret what they did because of the cultural and social impact of these technological tools, there is no going back. The world is changing, and these tools are aiding and assisting this change. 

AI will also mean that more and more people will work from home. Hence, both capital and big employers will need to provide incentives for people like myself who have now gotten accustomed to being at home and engaging in what is essentially the work of the future. And while public figures like Elon Musk seek to compel people to leave the house and engage in the drudgery of the past, the future entails something totally different. Elon Musk seems to have an opinion about everything, but just because he has an opinion about everything does not mean his opinions are accurate or correct. There is knowledge on one hand, and there is money on the other hand, and the reality is that we are heading more towards an information and knowledge-based economy, with AI at the forefront. Knowledge will most likely have the upper hand over money in tomorrow’s economy. Thus, the drudgery of the past which Elon Musk seeks to impose on us is anachronistic and obsolete. If we want people out of the house in an information and knowledge-based economy of the future, then capital and big employers will need to provide incentives to what is now an information and knowledge-based workforce made up of mostly ‘Millennials’ and Gen-Z workers who are not as conditioned as the previous generation in terms of culture and mentality. 

Experimenting with lifestyle and finding peace of mind are higher on the agenda for most people nowadays than going back to the drudgery of the past. There is no price tag on peace of mind. In fact, finding peace of mind and correcting one’s lifestyle is worth more than billions of dollars, and the reason for why finding peace of mind and correcting one’s lifestyle is worth more than billions of dollars is because peace of mind and a comfortable lifestyle are things which cannot be bought. They are essentially given to a person based on circumstances and karma. And with all the complexity that surrounds life in this day and age, it is better to seek to become ‘living poetry’ than to dwell on the past and to go back to what is anachronistic and obsolete, even if the loudest and most petulant voices seek that for all of us. In short, some of us incline towards over-glorifying the past, even though it is likely that the present and the future are far better than what we have experienced both in the deeper past and in the more recent past as a people and as an international community and society.