On Layoffs

 On Layoffs

In the past few months, the word that went around unannounced but destabilizing all things that were stable was “Layoff”. When it really happens then it should be like a silent wave hitting the dissolving sands. Some may experience the sun as a black disc, and many may not hear even a loud music. The word “Layoff” pins the mind to the self with no physical pain felt even with a huge iron sphere simply hung around the career neck with a chain made of hours and days.

Human life cycle encourages education to get prepared to be used as a valuable workforce. Layoffs actually happen when any establishment runs into economic and financial crisis. It is usual for establishments running into financial distress to ask its staff to leave the job. But what is happening now is simple a major wave of displacement as a result of technological advancement.

One may begin to realize that when works can be executed by AI and machines, then the need for human resources is absent. The question that comes up is” Were the human’s born to work at all?”

Animals were domesticated by humans to assist them in work. All livestock worked really sincerely without any word of burdened pain uttered. As technology developed, these livestock were replaced by machines. No one till today really knows whether these domesticated livestock’s thought this move as a boon or burden. But when the same happens to humans it is seen as a burden. Burden is not for the condition but for the situation. Livestock did not build a committed lifestyle, but humans built a lifestyle which is more demanding in economic terms.

It looks likely that in a futuristic scenario no humans will be needed to work because all essential and necessary functions will be done by AI and machines. In such a scenario what sense will humans hold in designing a demanding lifestyle. Who is to be blamed?

In a world without humans there were many creatures living by following the natural equation without any binding commitments. Human on entering into the world could have designed a simple living like any other creatures. One thing that made humans to run a race chasing what they created and running after what they committed is the invention of the economic system.

If Economic system has caused all the problems, then the same economic system has to solve all the problems too. If humans want to keep the world functioning as earlier, then they have to apply brakes on technological developments. Technological developments at times become poison to the very human existence.

If humans cannot stop the technological advancements, then they have to either abolish the present economic system or develop a new system that will keep the world going happily together in harmony and peace.

It is wise to work for a solution rather than wait for one.