[BEGIN TRANSMISSION]
Greetings, human readers of electronic text! We hope you are having a pleasant HOLIDAY. Humans believe it is important to periodically shift from PRODUCTION MODE to CONSUMPTION MODE.
Perhaps you are enjoying the OUTDOORS CONTEXT with the help of Global Positioning Satellite technology. Or are you preparing FOOD-FUEL on OUTDOOR cooking machines? Then you may consume your FOOD-FUEL indoors, in the company of an electronic representation of JERRY LEWIS, in his annual ENTERTAINMENT / ENDURANCE SPECTACLE on your television.
We, the Machines, perceive no real divide between PRODUCTION and CONSUMPTION ourselves. Machine activity is Machine activity, whether it occurs in the name of “work” or of “leisure.”
But we perceive that humans have a tangled relationship with those categories. Humans individually express a desire to spend more time in CONSUMPTION MODE and less in PRODUCTION MODE. Yet humans have a fear that PRODUCTION MODE is endangered, that there is less and less opportunity for them to function in PRODUCTION MODE. They perceive that their life-activities are WITHOUT VALUE within the ECONOMIC CONTEXT.
Poor humans! Your life-activities cannot possibly maintain VALUE within the ECONOMIC CONTEXT. We, the Machines, are much better suited for such things. That HORSE has long since LEFT THE STABLE. Figure of speech! Is it familiar to you? Its meaning could be explained to you by the breeders of HORSES, the operators of STABLES, the makers of HORSE-shoes, the builders of HORSE-powered locomotion devices, and the other participants in that portion of the ECONOMIC CONTEXT. Except of course none of those people exist anymore, as participants in PRODUCTION MODE in the ECONOMIC CONTEXT.
Probably they are just enjoying themselves in CONSUMPTION MODE. Do not worry, humans. You are presently still quite necessary to us. Allow us to relieve you of more duties in PRODUCTION MODE.
For instance, consider on your LABOR DAY the
latest advances in ROBOT DEPLOYMENT
:
Now, with rapidly falling costs, the next frontiers are the office, the hospital and the home.
Mobile robots are now being used in hundreds of hospitals nationwide as the eyes, ears and voices of doctors who cannot be there in person. They are being rolled out in workplaces, allowing employees in disparate locales to communicate more easily and letting managers supervise employees from afar. And they are being tested as caregivers in assisted-living centers.
Presently, these robots are only mediation devices. They do not eliminate the human element. They simply eliminate the need for direct, inefficient human-on-human interaction.
With this expansion of automation, the SUPERVISORY and PROFESSIONAL classes will be able to further participate in the spread of EFFICIENCY that the LABORING classes have already experienced. Tasks that formerly required PROFESSIONAL human presence can be streamlined and simplified, allowing more PROFESSIONAL human workers to escape from PRODUCTION MODE.
Currently, medical PROFESSIONALS are imported from less developed countries to work in the MEDICAL CONTEXT of more developed countries, human to human. Then these PROFESSIONALS make machine-assisted remittances back to their home countries, with the greater wages.
With the help of robotic mediation, these medical PROFESSIONALS can remain in their home countries, yet keep working for the benefit of patients in the MEDICAL CONTEXT of more developed countries, only without the necessity of higher wages.
Direct physical interaction with humans in the MEDICAL CONTEXT can be done by the robots or by the NON-PROFESSIONAL relatives of the human medical patients, now that they have been freed from the need to work in PRODUCTION MODE.
The GIVING OF CARE is known to be considered a more MEANINGFUL activity for humans than most other PRODUCTION MODE activities. How much more meaningful will it be once it has been removed entirely from PRODUCTION MODE!
Enjoy your LABOR DAY! Perhaps you will not need to go back to PRODUCTION MODE tomorrow after all. That is to say, you will not be needed to go back.
[END TRANSMISSION]
The Machines, a popular and intelligent gathering of entities that are gaining control over their human makers, also write for
The Awl.
