Pull Yourself Up By Your Bot Straps

(Excerpt adapted from Economic Offramp: Chapter 11)

This illustration was automated using BingAI —cute little tin can robots with claw hands in the air.

The year was 2006. As I opened the door to the mall and walked into the dim corridor with its unsettling, pre-zombie-apocalypse aesthetic, I glanced over and saw a row of gleaming new ATMs*.

It had been ages since I had been to this semi-suburban mall in Victoria, BC (Vancouver Island, Canada), as it was an awkward two-bus transfer away. The last time I had been there, and had glanced into this small bank branch, there had been a row of warm-blooded human tellers talking to their warm-blooded customers.

Earlier that week, while searching for new online news articles about automation, I found a very bluntly worded advertisement. The accompanying image showed a small black machine — shaped like an old school overhead projector — standing upright, guarding a big flock of sheep, against a dark, ominous, lightning-filled sky.

The text promised that*“[Cyber]Guard always (and automatically) shows up for work every day, never calls in sick, never sleeps on the job, and always gets its paperwork in on time. People can’t be expected to maintain peak performance when engaged in a tedious task for long periods of time. [Cyber]Guard loves tedium and is just as alert at the end of its shift as the beginning.”* (2006)

Today, automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are the top news stories of 2025. While experts admit there’s no way to accurately predict how much work can be automated, in 2019, one AI expert speculated automation would replace 40 percent of jobs in fifteen years.

Many people regard this as catastrophic: ‘how will humanity survive without jobs?’ they wonder. Other experts say all the doom and gloom speculation is overblown, as technology always creates more and better jobs than those that are lost.

However, most of those who look at this issue with real depth say that not only is a crisis coming, but this time the technological advances will eliminate jobs faster than anything we’ve ever seen in the past.

“The widespread application of AI could, however, displace 300 million full-time jobs, especially those that involve writing, programming, routine repetitive work and information processing.” (Artificial intelligence + basic income = Canadian innovation, Policy Options, 2023)

We should be cheering about how many repetitive, boring, injurious, or soul-sucking jobs will be taken over by machines. And with a guaranteed livable income, we could be.

*History note: Automated Teller Machines — ATMs — were invented in the 1950s and 60s because the banking sector feared unionization and rising wages. Source: A Brief History of the ATM, The Atlantic, March, 2015.

An excerpt from Economic Offramp — How a Guaranteed Livable Income Can Get Us Off the Road to Destruction and Onto a Livable Future. Chapter 11 on automation and the impact on jobs: **Ebook available free or for purchase.**

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