Building a Post-work Utopia: Technological Unemployment, Life Extension, and the Future of Human Flourishing

Abstract

Populations in developed societies are rapidly aging: fertility rates are at all-time lows while life expectancy creeps ever higher. This is triggering a social crisis in which shrinking youth populations are required to pay for the care and retirements of an aging majority. Some people argue that by investing in the right kinds of lifespan extension technology -the kind that extends the healthy and productive phases of life -we can avoid this crisis (thereby securing a 'longevity dividend'). This chapter argues that this longevity dividend is unlikely to be paid if lifespan extension coincides with rampant technological unemployment. This does not mean that we should not pursue lifespan extension, but it does mean that the argument in its favor needs to rest on other grounds. After articulating these grounds, the chapter proceeds to consider the implications this has for our vision of the extended life, postwork utopia. It argues that this vision may need to be reconceived and suggests that one plausible reconception involves prioritizing the role of games in the well-lived life.

Rethinking Remote Work, Automated Technologies, Meaningful Work and the Future of Work: Making a Case for Relationality

“…With automated technologies, Bastani ( 2019 ) and Danaher ( 2019 ) hold that technologies may lead to the utopian emancipation of our societies from meaningless work. However, Jones ( 2021 ) and Mueller ( 2021 ) contend that the proliferation of technology may lead to unintended technological unemployment and the threat of disruptive technologies to the work sector.…”

“…The proliferation of disruptive technologies, 1 such as information technology (IT), has warranted scholars like Mueller ( 2021 ) and Jones ( 2021 ) to advance a view that these ubiquitous technologies may lead to sporadic unemployment in the near future. Contrary to the above view, other theorists like Bastani ( 2019 ) and Danaher ( 2019 ) argue that introducing sociotechnical systems, 2 such as artificial intelligence, robots, and information technology, in the workspace may only lead to eradicating meaningless work. However, the rampant advancement and introduction of automated technologies are currently forcing humans to reconsider what they take to be work or meaningful work.…”

Legal framework for the coexistence of humans and conscious AI

“…Conventional definitions of these concepts are anthropocentric and attempts to transfer them into the context of AI inevitably lead to anthropocentric approach (Floridi and Sanders, 2004 ; Bryson and Kime, 2011 ). Ethical and legal frameworks considering the interests of human and non-human entities, including AI systems, shall commence with approaching intelligence and existence in a non-anthropocentric manner (Danaher, 2019 , p. 2), however human-centric ethics assume that human intelligence and consciousness represent the ultimate standards against which other intelligence forms should be defined and assessed (Moor, 2006 ). This assumption might be inappropriate, as AI systems can demonstrate distinct types of intelligence and cognitive abilities separate from human cognition.…”

A Subversive Role for Collaborative Inquiry in Academia Today

“…A fairly urgent question might be 'what will be the role of education, educators, and academia in a much debated postwork world?' The implications for a changed mandate for educators, are discussed by Danaher (2017) in the context of technological ubiquity, guaranteed income, and a quest for meaningful human existence. Leonardi and Pisani (2017) edited a special journal issue that focuses on the assumptions, ethical and political implications of the implementation of Basic Income.…”