A future of automation

A novel from ~75 years ago makes the most apt depiction I've seen of the future AI automation may bring.

One of my favorite books is Kurt Vonnegut's debut novel, Player Piano. Published in 1952, it shows a "near future" where society is automated to the extreme, though the automation he expected was purely mechanical rather than digital. He might not have predicted ChatGPT, but he got a lot else right.

Vonnegut's America is filled with machines that have taken over all meaningful work. This splits society into two worlds:

1. A small elite class of engineers and managers who design and run the systems 2. Everyone else, either unemployed in poverty or employed in make-work jobs

The novel primarily follows one of these managers as he grows disenchanted with the way automation stripped people of purpose, pride, and agency while everyone else insists that this is progress. The book also shows:

- A foreign spiritual leader trying to understand the "why" behind automation - A husband and wife struggling to explain the value in having no work or chores left to do - A group of construction workers spending the entire novel filling the same pothole simply to stay busy

In the end, Vonnegut comments on our addiction to automation even when we know its downsides rather than giving us a solution. This fatal flaw is especially poignant as the tech sector works on how AI can automate as much as possible. I'm personally bullish on AI, but we need to make sure we also ask the question of what we want to have on our plates after all is said and done.

The book's player piano motif culminates in a character choosing to play the piano for himself, reclaiming his agency despite the task having already been automated. Making sure people (all of us, not just Silicon Valley) get the final say in what we maintain agency over is one of the most important conversations we can be having right now.