Assisting Ourselves to Death: How Fully-Automated Life-Hacks Ruin Our Life and Our Future
Apps that read books for us, sports equipment that exercises muscles for us, delivery services that allow us to no longer take a step outside the house, and even digital spouses that relieve us of the hassle of interpersonal relationships — these are all great life-avoidance tactics. But can we call that a life worth living?
“We provide you a short version of any non-fiction bestseller that can be read in 15 minutes or less,” promises the Blinkist app.
“Get immediate, noticeable results with minimal time through electronic muscle stimulation,” advertises the EMS Body Training.
Great. As someone who likes to read, the first thing I think about is how to avoid or shorten the pleasure of reading. And if I like to do sports, then I definitely need something that promises me that I will have to exercise as little as possible while doing it, right?
Of course one could argue now that these offerings are for people who don’t like to do these activities or don’t have enough time for them.
But what’s the point then?
Why do we look at life as if it were a tedious to-do list we want to finish as soon as possible or, even better, avoid entirely?
That doesn’t make us more productive.
The best productivity and effectiveness hack is inspiration, or the much-vaunted “flow”. Because in a flow state, even strenuous activities are almost effortless. And that is — surprise! — also more productive and efficient. But with the attitude that apps and other pseudo-life hacks should live our lives for us, we certainly won’t get there.
Quite the opposite, in fact.
Such life-avoidance tactics are anything BUT inspiring.
Virtual relationship and spouse replacements
It also looks like we’re working on eliminating interpersonal relationships altogether in the future: we no longer need salespeople, personal account managers, secretaries, receptionists, or customer service people.
We can fully automate all of that and control it remotely via call centers in India or, even better, by chatbots eliminating the human component in communication entirely.
That’s also much cheaper. Talking directly to people is completely overrated anyway, right?
The peak and saddest outgrowth of this development is the “Virtual Wife” by Gatebox in Japan: the hologram of a petite female figure on the bedside table offers affectionate encouragement without ever talking back. And when man has had enough of her — well, then man just turns her off.
Brave new fully automated world
Where does this take us?
At some point, we will all be sitting on our sofas all alone with our virtual partners and offspring, trying on virtual clothes in front of the tv-screen, taking virtual trips and eating food delivered by drones.
The little fruit seller at the corner no longer exists. Cafés, restaurants, and bars have disappeared. But what do we care? We don’t leave the house anymore anyway.
We even order bottled fresh air via the Internet, of course.
And exercise, well, the only exercise we still engage in is moving our fingers across our smartphones and the like, if we haven’t been able to replace that with voice control assistants, too.
Isn’t that a terrifying outlook?
What can we do here and now to avoid this dystopian future?
My suggestion:
Live life to the fullest, don’t let machines live it FOR you
The Jim Morrison quote, “No one here gets out alive,” may seem a bit frightening or morbid at first glance, but there’s also something very liberating about realizing its message:
Life is happening now, in this moment, not someday when we have worked through all our to-do lists, increased our efficiency to the point of unbearability, and left our lives entirely to machines.
We don’t want to sit in the back seat of our own lives, do we?
So: No shortcuts, no cheat sheets, no excuses, and no avoidance tactics.
Get behind the wheel and right into the thick of life.
As messy, difficult, and challenging as life may be at times, we’re certainly not here to avoid it through virtual assistants.
This column was first published in Austria’s biggest technology magazine, e-media, in a German version.
If you liked this column, let’s stay in touch for more ♥️👇: https://coderedbyredswan.substack.com/
Subscribing to my column Coder Red on Substack is free. A small step for you, but a giant leap for my publication ♥️😊.
