Vsauce!
Kevin here.
Until robots render me and everyone else with a job obsolete… or make us more human than
we’ve ever been.
Humans have been working for a long time.
We work the soil, we work at jobs, we work on homework, we hate going to work, but work
can also fulfill us.
Some of us work to live and others of us live to work.
But should robots do all the work for us?
Where did the modern idea of work come from, and is it natural?
In the Paleolithic era, our human ancestors were hunters and gatherers.
They roamed the world surviving on natural resources for over two million years.
Working to improve their lives, very slowly, along the way.
Like by cooking meat in a fire to make it easier to chew and digest or observing time
by marking lunar movements on mammoth tusks.
And the louse put effort in, too, by migrating from people's heads into their newly-invented
clothes and evolving into the human body louse.
Which tells us that clothing may be about 107,000 years old and that lice are great
history teachers.
When the population eventually blossomed to the point of making the "happy hunting grounds"
lifestyle unsustainable, people needed to settle down.
We built simple homes instead of depending on caves and started to plow the ground.
We developed agriculture and animal husbandry to take more control over feeding ourselves.
Many a goat was consumed.
This newfound permanence meant that we could store food surpluses, support larger families
and develop communities.
For the first time, a smaller number of people could work to feed the population.
Neolithic humans could put some of their time into new, productive pursuits.
Like move really, really big rocks.
Humans began to realize the potential -- and the necessity -- of working together.
With each technological advance, we created new types of work and relegated some tasks
to history… and that’s when it started to become obvious that some work is better
than others.
Proof of how much people like not having to perform difficult, unpalatable professions
goes back almost four thousand years.
The Instruction Of Dua-Khety, a Middle Kingdom Egyptian text in the form of a letter from
a father to his son, extols the benefits of being a scribe -- a new profession that rose
to prominence with the development of writing.
The father disparages other, more physically-taxing professions, while declaring that life as
a scribe was the best line of work.
During the Ramesside Period of 1200 BC his instruction became one of the most frequently
used practice texts for student scribes.
Which means ancient civilization homework was literally motivation for avoiding certain
jobs.
Language evolved to describe professions and work, but it wasn’t until the mid-1500’s
that we had the most recognizable word that defines our role and participation in that
system: job.
“Jobben” in middle english meant to jab or peck, a small action that’s part of a
larger effort -- which is why a job is just a piece of the whole.
That whole being work.
Often someone else’s work.
The word “employ” meant “entangle”.
As an employee, you’re caught in the snare of your job.
And it came to define who we were.
Occupational last names like Carpenter, Baker, Eisenhower and Cabrera identified a person’s
position in society by their profession.
They did one job for so long that it permanently branded their family.
A job became a legacy that dictated your path through life.
Sometimes with heavy consequences.
To ensure future work for their families, metal grinders during the Industrial Revolution
denied safer working conditions because if they lived longer, there’d be fewer job
openings for their sons.
Fear of other humans limiting job availability soon gave way to the panic of machines eliminating
jobs altogether.
The Spinning Jenny single-handedly wiped out a job that had existed for thousands of years
- spinning thread.
A job so ingrained in human culture that the term “spinster” was coined to describe
a woman who spent her whole life spinning thread without marrying.
Invented in 1764, the spinning jenny made the weaving process so efficient that people
were afraid it’d take their jobs.
Spinners broke into inventor James Hargreaves’ house and destroyed his equipment to try to
halt progress and protect their livelihoods.
Decades later, English textile workers called Luddites banded together to destroy labor-economizing
technology for fear of being forced out of work.
Economists now use the term Luddite Fallacy to explain the fear that advances in technology
will lead to structural unemployment.
What really happens is that technological advancement causes industry-wide production
costs to fall, which lowers the competitive price and increases the supply and, in theory,
leads to more input.
Labor that becomes irrelevant shifts into new areas, and our goods get cheaper and better
as our standard of living rises.
In 1973, it took the average American 97.1 hours of labor to afford a color TV - more
than two weeks of full-time work.
By 2009, it took only two days to afford a slimmer, lighter, more energy-efficient, High
Definition TV.
We’re spending less time working to procure food and meeting basic survival needs but
we haven't become lazy -- we've freed ourselves up to solve other problems.
We’re beating back Belphagor.
The chief demon of sloth and one of the seven princes of Hell, Belphegor was described by
16th century German witch-hunter Peter Binsfeld as using the promise of innovation and ingenious
inventions to lure humans into laziness.
The fear was that work-reducing technology would free up too much time and allow evil
to creep into humanity.
However, lifespans and standards of living have consistently improved with each passing
generation — which means by today’s standards Peter Binsfeld could have hunted witches more
efficiently and for longer.
With the advancement of steam engines leading to electricity leading to computers leading
to robots it’s leading to…?
The end of many jobs.
A natural function of human progression that has happened over and over.
From the printing press eliminating scribes to telephone switchboard operators being replaced
by complex telephone and data exchange systems.
Narrator: The equipment that makes this service possible is among the most complex that man
has ever devised.
Humanity needs technology because human labor can only accomplish so much.
It’s why large animals like horses were first used to make up for the shortcomings
of human muscle.
But all animals have limits -- as CGP Grey illustrates in his Humans Need Not Apply video,
the horse population plummeted after the advent of machine power, but we still use the term
“horsepower” as a measurement of a machine’s output.
Narrator: The horsepower unit proved very useful.
Watt was able to tell mine owners and businessmen exactly what size engine would be needed to
replace the horses they’d been using.
Inventions help humans overcome our shortcomings, writing was developed to make up for the limitations
of memory.
And technological advances allow us to use our labor more specifically.
The industrial revolution marked the first time in human history that the majority of
people were put to work doing specialized jobs.
Prior to that, specialization was the work of the elite.
Scribes copying texts, architects hired for public works projects, court jesters juggling
batons.
Now, if you want to spend your life reviewing seagull poop simulators, there’s a job for
that.
But the reasons robots will replace humans in many labor sectors are the same reasons
that Scottish engineer James Nasmyth preferred self-acting machines and tools over skilled
workers in the 1800s.
They, “never got drunk; their hands never shook from excess; they were never absent
from work; they did not strike for wages; they were unfailing in their accuracy and
regularity.”
Machines are more dependable and consistent.
But machines and robots aren’t human.
And their continued implementation in the workforce means our humanity may be the most
valuable attribute we have.
When robots are performing mundane tasks, more and more people will be involved in uniquely
human jobs.
Markets built around human connection and collective experiences.
We’re on that path right now.
The amount of hours humans work per lifetime are dramatically lower than ever, and a 2015
U.S. Department Of Labor report stated that the average number of jobs held by a baby
boomer from age 18 to 48 was 11.7.
Through most of human history, we worked constantly at one thing -- and now we’re working less
and doing many different jobs with greater flexibility.
Increased opportunities to work from home -- and work less -- have improved the family
dynamic by allowing parents to spend more time raising their children.
If we automate the systems that fulfill our most basic survival needs, will it finally
allow us the freedom to spend our time the way we want?
Studs Terkel’s landmark book Working includes interviews with 130 people about their jobs.
Many felt their work gave their lives daily meaning to accompany the earned daily bread
-- but others felt trapped.
“I’m a machine,” says the spot welder.
“I’m caged,” says the bank teller.
“I’m a mule,” says the steelworker.”
“A monkey can do what I do,” says the receptionist.
“I’m an object,” says the high-fashion model.
But from the upper crust white collar to the lowest paying blue collar workers - one phrase
is used repeatedly.
“I’m a robot.”
And as always - thanks for watching.
Narrator: We know we are somewhere in the middle of a period of unprecedented economic
change.
For those of us who view history as a fascinating spectacle, the prospect of the coming quarter
century is exhilarating.
It is as if we were privileged not only to see but to participate in centuries of development
telescoped into a brief span.
It is not too early to train your sights on this prospect right now.
Man: Same old story all over again.
No jobs.
No luck.