I just finished reading an article in Vanity Fair that was pretty gloom and doom -- predicting the changes we will see in the next ten years "won't be pretty." Instead of a happy Jetson's type life, we will all find ourselves out of work and so then what?
I take issue with most of their predictions.
Yes, my life has changed enormously in the past twenty years. In 2000 I had no kids. I still wore pantyhose to work every day. I bought CDs of my favorite artists' music. I didn't have a computer with internet access at home. I had a cell phone but it stayed plugged into my car cigarette lighter and I only used it in emergencies. I worked out at a gym near my office and felt very yuppie-like if I drank a latte from Starbucks on the way home. If you wanted to reach me and I wasn't home you left me a message on my answering machine, and it had a little mini cassette tape in it. At work you could leave me a voicemail. I still went to movies in the theater, or rented movies from Blockbuster.
I had never even considered dating somebody I met online, although I had heard of such things.
I drank a lot of Diet Cokes.
I spent a lot of time fixing my hair.
I rarely ever cooked a meal for someone else and I had never cooked a roast, or meatloaf, or made a Christmas dinner.
So the Vanity Fair article was right about the fact that life has changed greatly in the past 20 years, and even in the past 10 years.
Ten years ago I didn't own a smartphone. I didn't even know the word "app."
The Vanity Fair article predicts that we are zooming into the future at a phenomenally fast rate. Scary fast.
Robots will soon replace humans in a lot of jobs. No kidding -- that's been going on for a while now. I don't think a Roomba, however, will holler at kids and say "Leave your muddy shoes by the door!"
Will humans be at the mercy of Siri and Alexa? Not me. I won't have either in my house. I am happy to be old-fashioned and Google stuff. On occasion I even open a book, made of paper, and look up something!
Will actors be replaced by videogame figures? Doubt it. Actors are fascinating to us. I have had mad crushes on scores of actors who had "it" - the indefinable quality that makes me want to watch them. I don't want to see a fake Brad Pitt. I want the real guy.
Will lawyers be replaced by Artificial Intelligence? I've been a paralegal a long time and I don't think so. I don't know any area of law that doesn't require at least some human interaction. I do think if they ever perfect driverless cars a lot of personal injury lawyers who advertise on buses will be out of work.I think that's the exception, though.
I told my son driverless cars will be here soon. His response was "I don't want one. I like to drive!" There is a macho fascination with driving that I really don't think will ever be replaced by robots.I think Nascar will always be alive and well.
Will a robot ever make a craft beer or a great wine? Doubtful.The human nose and palate are far better judges of beer and wine than any robot or AI.
Dining out is still a thing and I don't think food delivery services will replace that. People like to go out to eat and drink at a place where human beings wait on them. The restaurant where my son works is always busy.
I think jobs will change. A decade ago there was no Instacart. Now you can do someone's grocery shopping for them. You can be an Uber driver.You can be a Social Media consultant.
I think crime will change. There are cameras everywhere. Criminals will find it harder to go undetected.
Here's another job -- working at 23andMe or Ancestry.com and testing people's DNA. I had never heard of that ten years ago. Then of course there's a need for counselors, for people who discover they are related to folks they never knew existed before. [Interesting story about that here.]
As much as we all spend too much time on our phones, guess what? There are folks who recognize that's a problem and try to cut down on screen time, and increase human interaction time, which is far more satisfying. We [as a culture] know screens can be very destructive and for most intelligent people, the problem is being addressed.
I think instead of predicting gloom and doom, the article should have explained how professions have evolved recently and will continue to evolve. When I got my first paralegal job in 1985 I never would have dreamed I would one day work from home, on my own computer. I had never heard of a scanner. Now my job is very different than it was back then, and that's okay. In fact it's great. Instead of frantically rushing to file things at the courthouse, most every legal pleading can be filed by computer. Copies can go to other lawyers by email if the court doesn't send it automatically. Witnesses can be deposed remotely. Computers in cars can tell us what happened in an accident. Paralegals manage information on the computer much more than paper. The profession has evolved so much just during my 35 years.
My doctor walks into the room and immediately starts typing on a laptop. He can see everything about my health there without having to deal with paper. He can import records from other doctors. He can immediately tell the pharmacy to fill my prescription. It's amazing. (I still don't understand why they can't take blood pressure painlessly, though. Somebody needs to fix that, stat.)
I think we will see a boom in art. Yes, you read it right. ART. No robot or computer can create art the way a human being does it. Not only visual art but dance, writing, acting, music composition -- there are things humans will always do better than AI, in my opinion.
Older folks benefit from newer technology, too. My mom is 86 and still reads a lot, and on her Kindle the type can be increased for her, and it's not as heavy and awkward for her to hold in her arthritic, shaky hands as an old-fashioned paper book is. She has a rolling walker that lets her be mobile far easier than the cane of yesteryear.
I have always been fascinated by ideas of what the future will look like. For the 6th grade Social Studies Fair I drew a poster about the City of Tomorrow. Basically, I said we would all live in shopping malls where we could do everything indoors on the upper floors, shop and perhaps even work on the lower floors, and grow our own food on the roof. We wouldn't need cars because we could roller skate everywhere.
Skip ahead and now check out The Rise of Mixed Use Retail Properties: How Shopping Centers are Transforming Successfully:
"The failing former Town & Country shopping center in Houston, Texas, was purchased by Midway Companies in 2004 and transformed into the mixed-use CityCentre. This self-contained community is designed as a true urban live-work-play district. Situated on a 50-acre development, CityCentre is surrounded by open-air plazas and designed green spaces. It features more than 400,000 square feet of upscale retail and elegant dining; five office towers of class-A office space with main floor retail; luxury residences including apartments, brownstones and lofts; two conference centers; cinemas; programmed entertainment; a hotel; and an athletic club with spa and café. With a post office, a hospital and all the services you would need near-by, CityCentre truly is an urban live-work-play district."
These are just a few examples of how the future doesn't have to be all gloomy and scary. If I had the time I would love to write a book about this topic because it's so fascinating to me. Of course, in a few years it would be obsolete...
IN OTHER NEWS --
On January 11 [this Friday] I am giving away a copy of my book Leaf Season to someone who shares the link on their Facebook timeline. Check out my Facebook page for the link. Or if you've read that one check out my other book, Ghosts in the Garden City.
