From time to time in this space I’ve announced exciting new developments in my employment history. I’m afraid I may have bragged a little, boasting about translation jobs and books (self-) published.
Today I must humble myself, as is appropriate in Lent. My delusions of grandeur are past. My pomp has taken physic. I have signed up to drive for Uber Eats.
I complained of my financial challenges to the guys in my Bible study, and one of them kept urging me to try UE. “You can work when you want,” he says, “and pick your jobs.” Also, you don’t need a very nice car, like an Uber driver, which matters in my case.
So I did it. My understanding was that the vetting process would take a few days, but I got approved in one. I was not prepared for this; I figured I’d have more time to summon up my blood and play the tiger. However, the YouTube videos I’ve been watching suggest that you really ought to have a hot bag to keep your orders warm (or cold), and my order for one of those won’t show up till Thursday. So I’ll hold off till then.
On Thursday, I’ll probably come up with another excuse for delay. I am, to say the least, a timid driver.
The great joke of it has not escaped me – I lost my translating gig due to Artificial Intelligence, and this job is likely to go the same way. Even as I write (according to news reports), Uber is testing out self-driving delivery vehicles.
I suppose we all wonder where this will end. What job is safe from our digital overlords? I’m convinced that AI will never do creative work to match human art. But what it can do is work cheap. It’s the ultimate illegal immigrant, undercutting wages for the natives.
But if nobody has a job anymore, who’s going to buy all those cheap products? And how will mere humans subsist?
Perhaps after the Great Revolution, every human will be assigned a personal robot. That robot will do the human’s work, and the human will be paid for it, being legally responsible for the maintenance of the machine.
But what will we do with our spare time, then? Judging by our current behavior in the first stages of AI, I’m not optimistic.
There is something intriguingly and satisfyingly serviceable in the thought of beginning the delivery of food on this year’s ‘western’ reckoning of Maundy Thursday – may it be a good beginning to good work!
I cannot escape the thought that – before it ‘all ends’ – any testing out of self-driving delivery vehicles is going to involve lots of auto accidents of varying severity. (Does anyone call them ‘auto autos’?) Probably not excluding horrific lithium fires. (Has anyone written a new set of words to ‘Where have all the flowers gone?’ with an accent on the ravages – experienced and predictable – of AI?)