From: Nick Bostrom (nick.bostrom@yale.edu)
Date: Thu Sep 14 2000 - 00:34:20 MDT
[Non-member submission]
I'm participating in another BBC TV documentary; this time it's on the
future of work. The programme is about know how technology will change
the way people work and how they relate to work. They seem to have in
mind a timeframe of 10-15 years, but I don't think I'm strictly bound to
that.
Are there any points that anybody here thinks that I should make? (You
can either email me privately or dicsuss it here on the list.)
I'm planning to talk about virtual reality: how teleworking may become
popular when VR gets good enough that you can get those social
interactions with office mates that seem to be so essential. When that
stage is reached (I'm reckon this could implemented on a large scale in
about fifteen years) then there seems to be no reason why anybody who
works only with information would need to be physically present in the
office. Life guards on beaches etc. are a different matter, since it is
doubtful that robots will be good enough and cheap enough to replace
manual labour within that time scale.
AI (and uploading) is a big and important topic, which I might or might
not go into - I tend to doubt that it will have a huge effect until it
gets smarter than humans, and when it does that it may quickly change
almost everything. Performance-enhancing drugs, or drugs which could
make us enjoy work more, is another interesting topic. Other ideas?
Nick Bostrom
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 15:30:58 MST