My dream is of a world full of creativity where human beings have the knowledge, skills, will, and economic means to pursue their inherent interests.
This dream has evolved since my childhood. While other kids played, I solved math problems, thinking about how to improve any kind of
process people perform, like traffic, banking, or the global economy. I was passionate about computers growing up, and now I run a software company. My team of developers is creating a new AI. If our project succeeds, it will automate financial services. Banks will work faster and need fewer employees.
Great, right? I walked through life convinced that automation will give people time to make choices, creating an easier and more enjoyable life for everyone!
Is that really so? It sounds inevitable that many people will lose their jobs to technology. Perhaps they will not be able to find decent work again. If your job was automated, you would have to think about survival, not happiness. Did the UN think about the automation of human jobs when formulating SDG 8?
Policies like government-provided income to citizens become necessary to tackle economic poverty. Once this becomes the norm, we will have solved only half the problem. The other half is vital—what to do with our time. The answer is not in government policies but in our behavior. As humans, we are fully free to just eat, sleep, play games, and repeat. But if that is all we do, technology has the potential to end our civilization, just like any powerful tool. So, will you scroll all day? Or will you learn, create, share, and teach what machines cannot do, like art, critical thinking, creative writing, and pondering the questions of the universe? If you create and not just consume, if your life is not just social media, if it has substance and not just surface value, you will be helping mankind achieve SDG 8 by providing decent work and existence for all.
In the developed world, where everything is available to us, the only poverty that exists is the poverty of the soul. By creating, exploring, and understanding our reality rather than just consuming it ready-made, we can eradicate that poverty together. A new technology-fueled renaissance of human development could be dawning, where humanity is not manipulated by algorithms. It all depends on us!