I firmly believe that the next great milestone for humanity is a wave of automation creating an abundance of necessary goods. Automation of agriculture, supply chain, and retail is the next step in our industrial revolution. This includes farms, trucks, warehouses, and essential stores (grocery, hardware, clothing). In this blog post I will outline the ethical obligation in play as well as the potential hazards of this movement. 

The ethical reason to increase automation comes down to access to the most important things. Access to food, housing, and transportation. We currently have subpar systems in place to make sure everyone has access to these. The ‘cost’ of needing these systems is very high. The bus takes twice as long as an Uber, Section 8 housing is low quality and often dangerous, and food stamps don’t provide access to fresh produce. Access to these goods could be ubiquitous and equal for all people. 2.2 million people in America don’t have a car and live over a mile from a grocery store (US department of agriculture). These people buy food from corner stores and dollar general, which brings on another set of issues. Installing autonomous indoor farms in these areas would change peoples lives drastically. Also consider self driving Ubers and autonomous construction. Automation would drive the price of essential goods close to zero. The long term effects of everyone having a nice place to live, high quality food, and the ability to get around can’t be quantified. People’s quality of life would increase immediately. While this starts in a country like America the effects would eventually be global. Automation is an obligation because of the positive effect it would have on billions of people. 

It’s interesting that with the current state of technology we have not seen more of a movement towards automating the process I mentioned before. We have the capabilities, self-driving cars, automated vertical farms, and autonomous warehouses. The implementation of has environmental and social risks. Environmentally, overproduction of goods is wasteful. Socially, people may become ostracized by society if they are no longer useful as employees. I am less concerned about the environmental risks because waste is an inevitable byproduct of production. If we hope to increase quality of life on a large scale, production and therefore waste must increase. The potential to alienate people who used to work is a more sinister risk. Careful steps must be taken to transition people into their post-work life and make them comfortable with it. I am not writing this paper to suggest public policies on the matter, but to argue that framework exists where this is successful. There would need to be opportunities to volunteer, participate in amature sports, or other fulfilling activities. I believe it is possible for people to be satisfied in life without earning a wage. 

I have explained my affinity for automating processes most essential to society. We are obligated to do so because of the impact it would have and because we can. So long as the structure is in place to support people with obsolete careers this transition would be the best thing since the industrial revolution.