2017 was the year of the breakthrough. It was the year the idea of “0% employment” came to life. It was a truly revolutionary idea because it was saying exactly the opposite of what was common those days. Politicians were promising and governments were aiming for “100% employment“. They wanted everyone to have a job. Having a job meant having money and having money meant you could buy things. Money was the central part of the organisational model of society at that time. Money was what we all agreed and used as an artifact to “hold value”.
That year 2017 many people lost their jobs which ended up being done by robots. A lot more in 2018, even more in 2019 up until today.
It felt weird the first time I entered a car without a steering wheel. It felt weird the first time a drone delivered a parcel to me, a parcel containing personalised capsules sent to me by my “robotic health manager” to prevent sickness. It felt weird not having to go to the supermarket. It felt weird the first meal I tried prepared by a “chef robot”.
What about entering in a factory without a single human being? Or the first time you were diagnosed by a “computer doctor”? and having surgery performed by a “robotic doctor”?
Those first years were very tough. Capitalism began to crumble. The first and hardest part to get out of the crises was to realise that not having a job was not bad, in fact not having a job was actually good. Having to work is a kind of modern slavery since you “have to”. It is really good that humans found someone (robots) to do the jobs humans would have to do otherwise. At that point people were free to pursue anything they wanted in life.
For that to work the only thing human society needed was a new model and a new artifact to “hold value”. Clearly a wicked problem. That took several years of thinking, trying, failing and improving until a good enough and stable solution was found.
There was one last step to sort out, and this one was tough as well. People didn’t have to work anymore but they didn’t know what to do with their lives. They had to learn how to live under these new conditions.
Luckily all that is part of the past now, part of human history. Today is a historical day because officially humanity achieved 0% employment.
Nowadays people passionately dedicate their lives to do the things they believe are worth it. Humanity is more productive now in one day that it used to be in one full year like 2017.