The Leisure Society Will Be Built, Not By Labour And Capital, Not From Atoms And Bits, But With Energy And Intelligence

According to Marx, civilisation has been built by Labour using the tools supplied by Capital (with the proceeds going disproportionately to Capital).

Labour and Capital, the "factors of production", have long been a useful way to think about the world.

After the Digital Age began, Nicholas Negroponte observed that everything of value in the modern world was made up of either Atoms or Bits.

Indeed, at that point, "software", the intangible combination of logic and data, had become as important as physical objects (hardware).

Labour and Capital. Atoms and Bits. With each of these simple and elegant intellectual models, we were able to make sense of our world anew. 

And now, I believe that a useful way to look at the coming Leisure Society is to think of it in terms of two new and different entities - Energy and Intelligence.

Abundant and free energy is only a few years away

Robots and AI will soon replace humans at virtually every blue-collar and white-collar job

To produce anything in this world, we require a combination of Energy and Intelligence. Every process is driven by Energy and guided by Intelligence. Even matter - raw material - can be expressed as a combination of Energy and Intelligence. It takes energy to extract matter from the earth, energy to transform it into more useful forms, energy to transport it to where it is required. And it takes Intelligence to guide each of those processes. If Energy and Intelligence were free, raw material would be free too. In other words, we can discount matter in our analysis. it's only Energy and Intelligence that we need to think about.

We are approaching three "singularities" in our lifetimes, and I wrote about these earlier. The two basic ones are particularly important. The Energy Singularity (my term) will occur when the marginal cost of energy production falls to zero. The Technology Singularity (a term coined by Ray Kurzweil) will occur when artificial intelligence surpasses human intelligence. More importantly, the Technology Singularity will practically occur when artificial intelligence can be distributed and applied at a fraction of the cost of hiring human intelligence for the same task, a cost which will continue to plummet even as its quality improves.

I believe that we are putting in place the building blocks of the coming Leisure Society. We think we're saving the planet by replacing polluting fuels by renewables. We're actually doing much more than that. By harnessing "renewables", we're reducing the marginal cost of energy production to virtually zero. In other words, we're bringing the Energy Singularity closer. In about 15 years, I predict that the world will be producing 100% of its energy requirements from renewables, and when the setup costs of that energy infrastructure are finally amortised, energy will begin to be free.

The cost of Intelligence is falling too. Soon, both disembodied AI in our networks and embodied AI in devices and robots will be available to us virtually free of charge.

When virtually free robots and AI begin to run our farms and factories, using virtually free power and virtually free raw materials, and intelligent transport infrastructure is able to deliver goods to us virtually free of charge, we will have arrived at the Leisure Society.

Why Intelligent People Can't Find Happiness - Really?

I came across this article recently, which purported to offer six reasons why intelligent people couldn't find happiness.

As someone who has scored creditably on IQ tests in the past, I took a personal interest in what it had to say. To cut a long story short, I don't believe a simplistic characterisation of people as "intelligent" is sufficiently meaningful to predict their predisposition to happiness. I believe happiness is more a function of personal philosophy, and I can vouch for that because my own philosophy has undergone dramatic change over my lifetime, and it has had an effect on my perceived state of happiness.

You can read the article for yourself, but here's my analysis of the six main points.

1. They are victims of over-analysis

I used to be one, and it did cause me to brood over minutiae, but now I rely more on big-picture thinking, especially what I like to call the "Jupiter-Saturn philosophy". 

In mythology, Jupiter is wise and jolly (the word 'jovial' comes from Jove, which is another name for Jupiter). He sees everything in the world, and it gives him cause for cheer.

Saturn is wise but melancholy, hence the word 'saturnine'. He sees the world too, but it only gives him cause for gloom.

But now, if both Jupiter and Saturn are wise (i.e., they both know all that is worth knowing), how come their outlooks on life are so different? Who is right?

My answer is that Jupiter is right. Happiness is one of the primary goals of existence (some would argue that 'meaning' is the primary one). Since both Jupiter and Saturn see the same objective reality, but Jupiter has clearly chosen to frame his subjective reality in a way that makes him see the brighter side and be happy, it is clear that he is wiser. Saturn, in fact, is a fool. Who else would choose to be unhappy? The Jupiter-Saturn philosophy strongly suggests that happiness is not a function of objective reality but one's subjective interpretation of it. We can choose to frame each situation such that it gives us cheer. Why not do it?

As a second safeguard against over-analysis, I delegate more of my decision-making to objective criteria, such as statistical data, trends, expert opinion, etc. In other words, if my gut feeling makes me feel bad about a situation but objective criteria tell me there is nothing to worry about, I comfort myself with them and ignore my gut feelings. Most of the time, my fears turn out to have been baseless after all.

2. They want to match everything with their high standards

Cynicism helps. I half-expect things not to work; I half-expect people to disappoint, and I'm very often pleasantly surprised. George F. Will was right - 'The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised.'

This may sound paradoxical, but I'm simultaneously optimistic and pessimistic. I believe that things get better over time, and that we are living in the best of all times. At the same time, I don't expect that things will go smoothly for me when I undertake something.

3. Intelligent people judge themselves too hard

I don't know when I developed this habit, but I now tend to forgive myself easily. I recognise that I'm no better and no worse than other people. I can make the same mistakes that others do. It happens. We have to learn lessons and move on.

I have a personal philosophy of "from now forward" that prevents me from wasting time brooding about the past and what I could have done differently. I merely resolve not to make the same mistake again, and concentrate on what to do next, now that I am where I am.

4. They aim for bigger things

I don't understand why this should cause unhappiness. On the contrary, it gives one a set of goals. I always have something exciting to look forward to (personal projects that I've planned for myself), and a set of achievements in the past that I can look back on with satisfaction.

5. No one to appreciate them or have a meaningful conversation

This is actually less of a problem today than in the past, when interactions were limited by geography. Today, it is possible to have deep and meaningful conversations with people in other parts of the world, and to find like-minded people virtually anywhere. Social media has been a boon to me. I interact on a daily basis with some amazing people, many of whom I have never met in person.

6. Smart people often develop psychological issues

I can't comment on this since I'm not a professional psychologist, but "existential depression", insofar as it's not a clinical condition, can be corrected by reframing. It is true that life has no inherent meaning and that we have not been put on this earth for a purpose, but it is equally true that we give our lives whatever meaning we choose. I have found this to be a profoundly liberating philosophy. There is no cosmic authority to satisfy or disappoint. We are free to do what we set ourselves to do.

Finally, since I believe happiness itself is the goal, if a person fails to have happiness in spite of all the necessary conditions for it, it must be concluded that the person is not in fact intelligent.

There is empirical evidence for this. The biggest longitudinal study of gifted people (the Terman study) found that most gifted people were happy, even though not all of them achieved positions of eminence. It tells me that gifted people tend to acquire a self-awareness that allows them to be at peace with themselves. In fact, I find it amusing that people would even want to look for correlations between giftedness and achievement, since achievement is often driven by a sense of discontent. In the choice between contentment and achievement, contentment is therefore preferable - by definition.

The Intelligence of Parrots

When I was at school, we were taught that parrots had no real intelligence. One could not carry on an intelligent conversation with a parrot because the birds only repeated sounds without understanding their meaning.

However, later research seems to show that parrots are in fact highly intelligent creatures that understand what they're saying.

The recent case where a parrot repeatedly cried, "Mama, baby!" to draw the attention of a babysitter to a choking child is just the latest evidence that parrots do not just "parrot" what they have heard. They probably understand the meaning of the words, too.

It takes significant intelligence to recognise that a child is in distress, to understand that an adult human must be alerted to save the child, and a particular combination of words is the most appropriate to describe the situation. Also, it speaks highly of the emotional quality of empathy, to want to save a fellow living being. It makes us pause to think about what it means to be human.