I’ve recently been haunted by a cartoon. An animated film, as the grown-ups call it. 2008’s Wall-E to be specific, but the scene is not any of the bits to do with the two robots. Not because it’s weird to humanise inorganic androids and empathise with them (fine, the movie made me feel things).
It was the depiction of future mankind that seem uncannily close to where we’re headed: Obese slobs plastered to individual virtual screens, whizzing away in sedentary positions. 16 years since and we don’t just outsource manual professional and domestic work to smart devices. We now outsource cognitive tasks to Artificial Intelligence, and don’t seem nearly done with what’s left to outsource.
At what point in this unending obsession to make everything more convenient does it become unnecessary? Consequentially, when we remove ourselves from what we want to avoid doing, would we use the newfound freedom for something actually meaningful? Or lose it to more mind-numbing content?
It’s almost like we don’t want to do anything but be entertained. The root cause is obvious. We’re desperately trying to stave off boredom. That’s why we can’t function waiting in line without our hands itching for the phone, or have a meal without having first picked something to watch.
In a small study, 66 percent of men and 25 percent of women chose to painfully shock themselves rather than sit with nothing to do. The time span of the experiment? 15 minutes. Boredom doesn’t just incur self-harm. 18 percent of bored folk killed worms when given the option, nine times the number inclined to do so when not bored.
History also shows how bored parents and soldiers behave sadistically (which leans me one way in the eternal debate of whether humans are inherently good or evil, but that’s an Unpopular Opinion for another day).
If using the analogy of food; we’re engorged with everything we consume, but not working the calories off. I fear children of today do not know what it’s like to be bored. Or rather, cannot discover the wonders of what can be born out of it if properly cultivated.
Author and technologist Ray Kurzweil adopts a more optimistic slant. He believes this unprecedented liberty granted by clever machines will serve our deepest human aspirations to learn, create, and connect. Not too utopian a concept when recognising that it has happened before.
What we deem the rat race of modern life is truly an abundant luxury to our palaeolithic ancestors. See, the constant struggle of hunter-gatherers to survive left little opportunity for invention or philosophy. It was only post-agriculture civilisation that could afford literature, law, science, and engineering.
The fault never lies with technology. Which, as a means like money, is only a mirror reflecting what we choose to do with it. So we need to acquaint with boredom, and be adept at managing it. Only then can this automation-enabled fortuity herald the next creative revolution.
