Future warning

The world is changing quickly. Much faster than even the Industrial Revolution or the Internet revolution, all around the world, people at the very cutting edge of science and capability are shaping the future. It is hard not to feel left behind. The signs are all around us and can be very depressing if you don’t know what’s going on.

Ask yourself for proof: Is there a moment when I do not have to answer that message, text, SMS, email or call? Is there any place I can go without feeling the puppet strings of responsibility? Our modern era is reshaping itself into demands on our time, psyche, patience and, yes, your very social identity. And, if you peer, ever so gently, into the future developments exposed on TV, the Internet or media, the stark terror of drastic change is always evident. Genetically humans want to grow, expand and develop but change for change’s sake is frightening and can even be unsettling to the point of not wanting to go further.

Is there any doubt that calls for a return to “old America” resonate an appeal to many? Listen to people around you. Citizens like routine, people like comfort of knowing what tomorrow will bring. The loudest example of upheaval, of unwarranted change, is war and that’s what seems to be happening all around us: upheaval of everything we thought we could rely on.

We used to take Saturday and Sunday off. We thought we could take two-week holidays, we thought we could rely on our jobs being constant, the income rising over time before retirement. But none of that is normal anymore. If you are connected to your phone 24/7, then is a holiday a total break? If the business you are in changes because of automation (all industry) or obsolescence (anything not digital) or simply bad management (like Boeing) you live day-to-day wondering when they will pull your plug. And as automation and expanded computer systems, like AI and Quantum, come online, will the prospects of salary increase fade away in favor of more profitable new technology? And do you really think you will be finished working, feet resting, when you get to 65? Really? Not anymore.

The truth is that you cannot stop the changes underway, there is a change tsunami worldwide. You either learn how to benefit from them or you will drown. I had a friend at AT&T in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Every time any course was offered to him, he took it. He was a senior manager of technical systems. I asked him why he took a refrigeration course that was offered at late night school. “The day they are firing people, they know I’m indispensable in case of a strike — I can run the air conditioning for the computer systems.” And he was never “downsized,” not once.

Every factory in America is turning to robots — robots that build product, repair themselves, move across the plant, all fulfilling labor requirements with perfection. Trade publications have headlines that scream “the future is robotic” and there’s a “bigger role for AI in replacing labor.” Even software programs are now using AI and new generation computers to allow self-reprogramming of applications — what was once a CAD-CAM program that a human had to put into physical practice is now a CAD-CAM-CNC manufacturing one-step process. Not a human is sight.

But there is hope. We have to seize the opportunity to restore the middle ground of the industrial base. How? Stop trying to fit into the behemoth that is this new industrial revolution and strike out as a new venture, with new ideas, new concepts, new thinking. Become that guy in a garage tinkering. Become that gal who saw the need for a hand-held small chainsaw. Think like the person using, controlling robotics to make a floor cleaner. Or the inventor of the rechargeable nail trimmer or start a training course business for kids to learn basic computer skills. Or plug yourself back into school into what interests you, what you are passionate about, and find a solo but more fulfilling path.

If you do not recognize the future, for all its perils and possibilities, right now, this very day, then this new technology revolution will swallow all your hopes and dreams without a backwards glance. You can change your path, the first step is realizing that everything is changing, like it or not. The tsunami wave is coming. You can either be swept away or rise over the top and thrive.

Peter Riva, a former resident of Amenia Union, now lives in New Mexico.