Gotham Diary:
This Robot Thing
14 May 2015
There has been a lot of buzz in the press lately, about how robots will soon be doing everybody’s job. Be afraid, be &c &c!
I think it’s time to drop the Chicken Little act. We are not helpless victims of a technological juggernaut — not unless we want to be.
Almost thirty years ago — in the fall, I think it was — I got my first computer, an IBM Peanut. Oh, how hopeful I was! I knew that the Peanut was a very limited machine, but I also knew that it was right for someone like me, without a tech background. We were, both of us, Entry Level. There were a few applications for the Peanut, although I can’t remember what they were. What did the damned thing do? I used it mostly to teach myself BASIC. I told my friends, very few of whom had computers of their own (or would even acquire computers within the next ten years) that there was an analogy to be made between now, the late Eighties, and the early days of automotion. As the owner of one of the first cars, either you or your chauffeur had to know how to operate the engine — and how to fix it. You did not simply slip behind the wheel and turn a key. Oh, no. At this point, my analogy creaked a bit, because I had no intention of opening the case and playing with the motherboard. I knew where that would lead. But I would learn a thing or two about coding, so that I could teach my computer what I wanted it to do.
This dream took a long, long time to die. Oh, I gave up BASIC soon enough. I saw that I was never going to be equipped to direct the operation of a computer. Besides, I was ready to move into the automotive analogy of easy ignition. Once I got the drift of how code worked, I lost interest, and reverted to my native English. I expected the market, which was always humming with newer and faster promises, to make my computer more automated. Just press a button!
I think I’ve said this before: every morning, before I write a word, I set up the day’s page with a patch of HTML. Then I select the day’s image. I assign a new name to the image file, and save it in a special folder. Then I open the image in Photoshop, where I see if Auto Smart Fix does anything to make it look better. I also decide whether to crop the image. Then I resize it, always to the same width, and save it again, this time with yet another name. If you place your cursor over the photograph, you can see the name. It is always the width of the image (always the same), followed by a spacer “x,” followed by the date, and usually with the letter “a” at the end. (Sometimes, I change my mind, dig up another image, and save it as *b.*) Then I return to WordPress and the day’s page. I insert the image. I save the draft. Only then do I start writing.
If my computer were truly automated, it could perform all of the functions that I’ve just enumerated, from the moment I chose the day’s image to the moment I began writing. The procedure is unvarying, and I rather resent having to do it myself. What’s the computer for, anyway, if not to pick up the tedious jobs? I should, however, reserve decisions about enhancement and cropping to myself. I do not believe that algorithms could take my place, especially as regards cropping — even if cropping is something I usually don’t do. In other words, if there were money to be made, someone would peddle a simple but foolproof application for mimicking routines and passing through discrete applications (ZoomBrowser, Photoshop, Windows Explorer, and the Web browser on which WordPress operates). But no one, not even I, even if I were gifted with all the coding savvy in the world, could create an algorithm that would take the place of my snap judgments about cropping photographs.
My point is not to say that we have nothing to worry about because robots will never be able to take the place of human beings completely. That may be true, but what matters is whether robots can do enough of the job well enough to warrant slight reductions in quality. Cropping, in this view, becomes an expensive add-on feature, because a human being has to do it. Does it really have to be done? That’s a classic business decision, and it would probably be answered, in most cases, in the affirmative. After all, the photographs that appear at this site are almost studiedly unrelated to the text that they accompany. You might still want to have a human being selecting the image, but there would be no need for that person to read the day’s entry.
For me, of course, this choosing, editing, and pasting rigmarole is not an occupation. Letting the computer do it all (except for the cropping!) would not put me out of work. But let’s pretend that it’s a full-time job, and that someone is paid a living wage to do it, day after day. Now imagine that a robot is designed to do everything but the cropping. Let’s suppose that the robot is not terribly expensive. This leaves me, the man in charge, with a decision. Do I fire the worker and do without cropping? Or do I retain the worker, and direct his efforts, when he is not busy cropping images, to other jobs that might need doing, but to discharge which I was and am unable to hire an extra worker?
Do I cut my expenses, or do I repurpose the worker, whose job it now is to discover new processes and capabilities, some of which may in turn be assigned to even newer robots?
The answer, in my terms, hangs on whether I am a businessman or a capitalist. Heavens, you will say, what’s the difference? Here’s the difference. A businessman is a provider of products and services for which he regards himself as personally and socially responsible. A capitalist is a trader who enhances the value of a commodity and realizes the profit. I think they’re very, very different. I’ll look into that difference tomorrow.