Lost "Life": Reflections on the significance of scientific and technological progress

With the advancement of science and technology, especially information technology, our lives are becoming more and more convenient. But while we are getting more convenient, we are also experiencing many inadvertent "losses". These losses may not necessarily mean the disappearance of something in the real sense. In most cases, they simply mean changes in people's lifestyles and working methods, and such changes are likely to make it difficult for a considerable number of social groups to accept and adapt in a short period of time. In this sense, the "losses" brought about by technological progress can be roughly divided into changes in living habits, changes in work forms, and the inability of various social groups to share the benefits of technological development at the same time, etc.

The changes in living habits brought about by technological progress are likely to be felt by everyone, especially in a rapidly developing environment like China, where our lifestyles are quite different and changed from 10 years ago or even 5 years ago. Of course, this difference or change is positive or efficient in most cases, but it cannot be ruled out that our lives will have to face the troubles brought about by technological progress in many cases. For example, increasingly convenient means of communication allow each of us to be in contact with the outside world all the time. While gaining convenience, we also lose a certain amount of privacy and personal space. An inadvertent Weibo post may leak very private personal information, and even lead to human flesh searches and cyber violence.

Convenient remote communication has also fundamentally changed the way we interact with others. In the past, when people were in love, they would write letters several days apart, but for both parties, the years were peaceful and the love was long. Later, with the advent of telephones, we could see the hero and heroine in old movies riding bicycles over mountains and ridges just to make a phone call. The one-way letter communication has become a two-way call interaction, but the longing is still as deep and long as before. However, this slow-paced way of communication has completely disappeared with the rise of the Internet. Today, young couples may have a big fight because of a few minutes of late reply to WeChat. If we must say what our lives have lost due to the advancement of technology, it is probably the tolerance and patience we once had.

The change in work patterns is also a direct consequence of technological progress. When computer and mobile communication technology develop to the point where people's offices are no longer limited by location, the boundary between work and life will become blurred. Today's office workers cannot fully enjoy their personal space even after get off work or even on vacation, as their bosses or colleagues may find you at any time. When you are urgently notified to work overtime, you cannot use excuses such as not seeing the message even if you really don't want to participate. Many busy young people will even change their WeChat nicknames to "Boarding, please wait" for a few hours before boarding.

Of course, whether it is a change in lifestyle or a change in work form, it is more about the pain or even discomfort in the process of accepting new things. We may miss the old times, but no one wants to go back to the old times. However, for many people, the changes brought about by technological development may threaten their jobs and livelihoods, which is far from the so-called pain. The last wave of technological development was the information revolution. From the development and popularization of computers to the Internet, we are still feeling its vigorous vitality. However, behind every technological revolution, a number of industries and positions will disappear, and the staff in these positions will have to face the fate of job transfer and unemployment in the course of their lives.

One of the consequences of the information revolution is the widespread use of robots in the manufacturing industry. When machines can achieve higher work efficiency and lower failure rate than humans under the sophisticated guidance of programs, the manufacturing process that relies on manpower will lose its meaning of existence, and can only maintain a glimmer of hope in niche areas such as handicrafts. Fortunately, under the wave of industrial robots' massive attack, the reason why humans have not encountered a large-scale unemployment crisis is that the potential and market brought by the information revolution itself are too huge, and these workers who have lost their jobs in the production line can easily find other places to stay. Of course, re-learning and re-adaptation after job transfer are indeed unavoidable.

Image source: Visual China

Office computerization is also a direct result of technological progress, but its situation is very similar to that of robots entering factories. While taking away some jobs, it also creates new jobs. Even due to the improvement of business processing capabilities, the increase in new jobs may be much greater than the elimination of old jobs. For example, when the last wave of office computerization came, a large number of jobs in units such as post offices and banks were streamlined and eliminated, but most of the transferred employees were able to adapt well to new jobs based on computers and the Internet after some training.

Today, the development of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence may also create a lot of conveniences, just like the office computerization revolution that emerged 30 or 40 years ago, but also make many jobs disappear. But this time it is likely to be different. For many workers facing unemployment, it is much more difficult to keep up with the pace of technological progress. In the past, workers only needed simple training to understand and operate computers, so as to smoothly switch their job roles. But in many industries that may be replaced by artificial intelligence, workers have never even come into contact with programming, let alone fashionable concepts such as neural networks and machine learning. In such a situation, the difficulty and cost of enterprises to re-educate workers is far greater than directly hiring people with relevant professional skills. The former front-line workers will most likely have to transfer to other positions that they have never been exposed to before. At this time, once the emerging markets brought by new technologies cannot provide sufficient growth potential, large-scale unemployment will be difficult to avoid.

There is no perfect thing in the world, and the same is true for technological progress. For independent workers, maintaining an enterprising spirit and determination will give us an advantage in career choices in any era.

Technological advancement poses challenges to the labor market

At present, a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation represented by artificial intelligence is emerging. With the accumulation of big data, the innovation of theoretical algorithms, the improvement of computing power and the improvement of network infrastructure, technological progress has entered a new stage, and intelligence has become an important direction for technological and industrial development. While converting scientific and technological progress into higher productivity and economic growth momentum, automation driven by artificial intelligence has also had a profound impact on the labor market. Many studies have shown that workers engaged in "routine" jobs and low-skilled workers are most affected by technological progress. Automation may aggravate unemployment, job polarization and income inequality. Its prominent consequence is that the proportion of jobs is increasingly concentrated at the top and bottom of the skill and income distribution, and the proportion of employment with intermediate skills has dropped sharply.

As the largest developing country, my country’s “employment is the biggest livelihood issue”. The impact of advances in automation technologies such as robots on my country’s labor market is an important academic and policy issue. In-depth research on this issue is of great significance to maintaining long-term stability in the employment rate and preventing the worsening of income inequality.