By now I suspect almost everyone has heard that Amazon has plans to start delivering small packages via flying drones, something Jeff Bezos imagines happening within the next few years, but not sooner than 2015. Depending on one's age, this probably sounds like either the next logical step for Amazon Prime, or just another fantasy future technology like flying cars: meet George Jetson! Sure there's the technical challenge of managing air traffic in a sky crowded with tiny delivery drones buzzing all around and dropping small packages on neighborhood doorsteps. But I see a larger problem looming, and not just for UPS drivers.
Here are my thoughts: This is all part of the evolution of human civilization, the natural rise of technology and the demise of human agency. My views on whether this is generally a good or a bad thing are complicated by the results so far and a certain amount of skepticism and misanthropy that seems to reside in my nature. If you take the long view it's obvious that technological superiority rules the human world. This is true whether one considers warfare or commerce or even sports. Technology trumps nature (whatever that means in any case, since it's practically impossible to separate life, even technically enhanced life, from nature). No one would make a case for wooden tennis rackets or leather football helmets, other than perhaps nostalgia or aesthetics.
Sure, mere humans can fight a rearguard action, the way terrorists can make life uncomfortable for a while, but in the long run technology tends to win out. We can willfully ignore the machine, but there are very few places left where we can exist completely without modern technology; even the few so-called "primitive" human cultures left in isolated spots across the planet are already employing technology. Humans make things, that's what we do, from clothing, to weapons, to tools and shelter, and also better ways to get from place to place. The more technology, the more we thrive. The more we thrive the less we work -- some of us -- and the less we work the more we dream, and the more we dream the more we think up new technology -- some of us.
The problem is we're getting really good at this stuff now. The time it takes us to get from dream to reality is getting shorter and shorter. I say this not so much to celebrate our technological prowess, but to emphasize that some of the things I once worried about as a kid reading science fiction are now realities or soon will be. On the plus side I suppose are 3D printers -- although it is interesting that among the first things created with that new technology (as with most new technologies) were weapons -- and the Internet and electric cars and perhaps even drones. Still, I do wonder who's in charge of all this progress.
What makes drones so interesting is the ability to do things by remote control. Who doesn't like playing with those RC cars and helicopters? But once again one of the first practical things we've done with the technology is turn it into a weapon so we can now kill by remote control. For those who see glory in warfare, this must seem an abomination. But on the other hand, it's the next logical step from rocks, to swords and spears, to guns and missiles. Efficiency in killing other humans is one of the marks of civilized man. And the less one exposes oneself to danger, the more advanced the weapons, the more successful (albeit less heroic) the tactic. Drones are better than suicide bombers because you don't have to die in the process of delivering your lethal message.
But enough of killing. Automation, drones, robotics, these are all steps along the way to improving human performance and efficiency in the workplace and in commerce as well as in warfare. Computers do a better job of flying sophisticated aircraft, both more efficient and for the most part safer than human pilots, until they malfunction, which unfortunately they still do from time to time. Statistics are on the side of the machine. Computers have a better safety record than human pilots, but still it's not perfect, and so we have human pilots along for the ride just in case. The only problem seems to be that human pilots don't tend to pay much attention when computers are flying the plane, so they sometimes fail to realize that they are flying at the wrong altitude before they go crashing into a mountain or seawall. Statistics may be on the side of autopilots, but I hope someone is monitoring the instruments.
And yet none of that is what really troubles me (except when I fly). As I said, by and large the machines do an excellent job and they're getting better all the time. But that is just it. The better they get, the less we'll be needed to do those things we used to do. In Star Trek, humans seem to have solved that problem. They don't need jobs or money; they can now spend their time exploring the universe, or pursuing their hobbies. It sounds a little like my version of retirement, so I find it rather appealing. But I still worry about how we will adjust to a world where droids and drones are doing most of the heavy lifting and computers are doing practically all of the thinking. I assume we'll find our niche, or rather the rising generations will. I've found mine. I'm ready to concede the sky to the drones and the highways to the droids, although I still like driving my own car and playing my own guitar. It keeps me awake -- most of the time.
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