I picked up the book from this recommendation.

I was hooked on the book until it was finished. I read it in one week. I love it. Definitely read it. The author Marshall Brain, cares about understanding the world. Unfortunately I didn’t find anything from his project, HowStuffWorks, seems like he sold this business and it’s not active anymore. I’m not a teenager but if I was, I would read The Teenager’s Guide to the Real World too.

The book starts with introducing Manna, a robot designed to manage stores. Computers have advantages over humans. They don’t forget stuff and they can fit a lot of information in their memory and plan for things. It would help employees do their jobs faster and easier.

“It tells you exactly what to do. Like, It told me to get four new bags from the rack. When I did that it told me to go to trash can #1. Once I got there it told me to open the cabinet and pull out the trash can. Once I did that it told me to check the floor for any debris. Then it told me to tie up the bag and put it to the side, on the left. Then it told me to put a new bag in the can. Then it told me to attach the bag to the rim. Then it told me to put the can back in and close the cabinet. Then it told me to wipe down the cabinet and make sure it’s spotless. Then it told me to push the help button on the can to make sure it is working. Then it told me to move to trash can #2. Like that.”

People no longer have a manager who is shouting at them. It’s just Manna that reminds people what to do and how to do it.

So, the first wave of fast food robots did not replace all of the burger flipping employees as everyone had expected. The robots replaced middle management and significantly improved the performance of minimum wage employees.

In the first chapter Manna is a tool that helps you do your stuff faster. It’s creepy, but people use it. Employees like it because it makes their jobs easier. Employers like it because if employees are doing their job faster they need fewer employees. It’s clear who ultimately benefits from this efficiency.

“It’s not unusual, except that Manna is telling you exactly what to do every second of every day. If it asks you to go to the back and get merchandise, it tells you exactly where to walk to go get it. And here is the weirdest part — I never see another employee the entire day. The way it makes me walk, I never run into anyone else. I can go for a full shift and never see another employee. Even our breaks are staggered. Everyone takes their breaks alone. We all arrive at staggered times. It’s like Manna is trying to totally eliminate human interaction on the job.”

Robots can make people happier by making them faster. They can free up your time so you spend it however you want. People never had the chance to be idle. They had to spend lots of time to satisfy their basic needs. But if a robot does this by taking away your freedom you don’t get any benefit. When a robot tells you what to do every minute of your time it means that you can also be replaced easily.

Later on Manna gets more powerful, and starts making more decisions. Manna can now fire people. Manna knows how everyone is spending every minute of their time. And since more Manna software was deployed in different stores it tracked more information about every person. People could no longer get hired to another store if they were fired at a store with Manna.

You can imagine what would happen. Manna fires you because you don’t show up for work a couple times. Now you try to go get a job somewhere else. No other Manna system is going to hire you. There had always been an implicit threat in the American economy — “if you do not have a job, you cannot make any money and you will therefore become homeless.” Manna simply took that threat and turned the screws. If you did not do what Manna told you to, it would fire you. Then you would not be able to get a job anywhere else. It gave Manna huge leverage.

At this point you can see the power imbalance. People need a job to pay for rent. Manna is controlling the Jobs. Manna is controlled by people who want more money. You either work your whole day or you get banned from working.

You can see where it’s already going. Minimum wage employees first gets micromanaged by robots. Then robots slowly do more of the work. As time goes on and these jobs are broken down into smaller and smaller steps it’s easier to replace people with robots.

Now what happens when all minimum wage jobs are eliminated? There are people who can’t pay their rent. These people need help from the government. But government does not have infinite money to give to increasing number of people who are put out of jobs. Ultimately people just need food and a roof right?

As the robots took over in the workplace, the number of welfare recipients grew rapidly. Manna replaced tens of millions of minimum wage workers with robots, and terrafoam housing became the warehouse of choice for them. Terrafoam buildings were not pretty, but they were incredibly inexpensive to build and were designed for maximum occupancy. They clustered the buildings on trash land well away from urban centers so no one had to look at them. It was a lot like an old-style college dorm. Each person got a 5 foot by 10 foot room with a bed and a TV — the world’s best pacifier. During the day the bed was a couch and people sat on the bedspread, which also served as a sheet and the blanket. At night the bed was a bed. When I arrived they had just started putting in bunk beds to double the number of people in each building. Burt was not excited to see me when I arrived — he had had a private room for 10 years, and my arrival was the end of that. At least he was polite about it.

Nobody likes to be in this society. You don’t want to be out of job and live in a prison. It does not look like a prison. But think about it. You are fed, and have a place to sleep. You can’t get away from the place because you can’t live anywhere else. You can entertainment to keep you busy and kill the time.

In later chapters the book shows that there’s another way. Robots can control us. But we can also control the technology. A robots goal is not to control us, it’s the robot owner that controls us. So what if the owners of robots are not after eliminating everyone from society? Read the book and see it yourself.

I had this question in mind from earlier times but nowadays I think about it more:

Which technologies take away your freedom and which technologies make you free?