There were a lot of technological advances during the Victorian era and a lot of people kept apace and were generally interested in those advances. “You can read the paper on this little device in your pocket” likely wouldn’t be that shocking. That the environment is catastrophically changing due to burning fossil fuels would likely be a far greater shock. That we’re basically doing nothing to prevent it would likely be an even bigger shock.
It is not the rate of technological advance that would be the issue, nor even the environmental consequences of industrial activity. They were starting to grapple with the latter in the Victorian era. No, it is the social consequences of the technology. The idea that there would be substantial populations that do not agree with their neighbours on the basic facts of what is going on.
Can I choose all of the above?
It's like page 10 and petty bickering is at a minimum. I think wherever it's going, we win!
I realized i left one-off: "We have parts of the star trek future, but not the good parts"
But it's hardly only artists and writers that are going to be affected here. Heck, you look at virtually any big company's website (and it doesn't have to be a very big company) and their first line of a Help Desk is now an AI chatbot. All the service industries are going to get hit just like manufacturing was in the 80's. Someone mentioned that some companies still use injection molds from the 40's. Sure. I'm sure that's true. But, that doesn't change the fact that manufacturing jobs went down by about 35% overall. Note, these are all really complex issues and it certainly isn't solely automation that has caused the loss of so many jobs.
www.thinkautomation.com
