While it might be easy to understand why workers in a specific industry resist automation, this seems like a problem to continued technological advancement. That is, one reason to invest in technology IS to eliminate the requirement that human beings do certain jobs. How do we have continuing technological advancement while dealing fairly with the demands of workers?
In order for us to “ethically” (not that we could actually agree on what that entails) advance technology, we must first tear down our societal structures and rebuild. In the “End of Utopia piece, the author says, “I believe that the potential liberating blessings of technology and industrialization will not even begin to be real and visible until Capitalist industrialization and Capitalist technology have been done away with.” (Marcuse p. 68). I interpreted this to mean that in order for this new technology to benefit us, we will need to dismantle the society structures that prevent us from being able to embrace it. Nobody loves going to work retail every day, obviously. And in most aspects a clothing store could be run by AI (when it becomes more advanced). The problem is that all these job positions that no one likes, that COULD be done by AI, are jobs that people still need to survive. In order to “ethically” phase these jobs out and let AI handle them, we need to restructure the job and education system. It needs to be free and accessible to get a degree, and people need access to medical care, housing, food, child care, and transportation so that they can get their education in order to enter “higher” levels of the workforce. I have been waiting over 5 months to see a Neurologist and will be waiting for some time more because there are so few of them and they are in such high demand. I truly believe that if we made the road to becoming a medical profession more accessible to people that we could lessen or even eliminate the shortage of specialists altogether. If students were supplied with all they need to survive and thrive without worrying about working to bring in an income while in classes I truly believe that we would see a surge in people entering the medical field. This idea obviously relies on the implementation of a basic universal income, or even just for college students!
-Marvin