I have been trying to learn as much about AI as I can, as a regular, non-techy person. It’s clearly a transformative technology, but what will that transformation look like? We will find out.

One key issue that comes up all the time is: What will happen to our knowledge, wisdom, and creativity when AI can do so much work for us? How will that change us, how will that change the way we view the work itself?

It’s a huge question.

In these discussions, I keep finding myself reflecting on a passage from one of my very favorite books, a book I’ve read three times, The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell (Amazon, Bookshop).

The Road to Wigan Pier was written in 1937, and among other things, it brilliantly explores the subject of work.

I love Orwell’s work. I love his clarity, I love the originality of his expression, and I love the fact that he always surprises me.

I certainly don’t always agree with George Orwell, and I’m not sure I agree with the passage that I’m going to read. But it’s certainly very thought-provoking.

Here is the passage that I keep thinking about, lightly edited:

 [There is] Because of a principle that is not always recognized, though always
acted upon: that so long as the machine is there, one is under an
obligation to use it. No one draws water from the well when he can turn on
the tap. One sees a good illustration of this in the matter of travel.
The nomad who walks or rides…may
suffer every kind of discomfort, but at least he is living while he is
travelling; whereas for the passenger in an express train or a luxury liner
his journey is..a kind of temporary death. And yet so long
as the railways exist, one has got to travel by train—or by car or
aeroplane…. When I want to go up to
London why do I not pack my luggage on to a mule and set out on foot,
making a two days of it? Because, with the Green Line buses whizzing past
me every ten minutes, such a journey would be intolerably irksome. In order
that one may enjoy primitive methods of travel, it is necessary that no
other method should be available. No human being ever wants to do anything
in a more cumbrous way than is necessary. …Deliberately to revert to primitive methods to use archaic tools, to put silly little difficulties in your own way, would be a piece of
dilettantism, of pretty-pretty arty and craftiness.

Orwell goes on to discuss why this instinct can have terrible outcomes, and how we follow that instinct even when we recognize the bad outcome.

The entire passage, and the entire book, is well worth reading.

In my own observation, I’ve often thought, “Convenience always wins.” We’ll see what that means in the context of AI.