An idea is.
and we are its vehicles. (see the ted talk below) We are the replicants at the employ of ideas. An idea does its best to spread no matter what we want to do with it. Tomorrow it will find a better replicant than us in machines. And right now, it is rewarding people who are doing the most to accelerate that shift. Hence the big payouts for apps, .coms, automations and all sorts of work that serves automation.
Future of service economy
Indian pundits have hedged their economic bets against agriculture and with service economy. Against creation and with impending obsolescence. Indian service economy is not cutting edge, it is largely a job shop for work that is too mind numbing for actual willing humans to do. So the industry hires smart young people to waste their time (not learning skills beyond the immediate task) on cleaning data/ writing reports/ analysing markets/ making numbers/ writing algorithms and so on.
All these tasks are in the service on making temes*.
*gene – genetic info replicant(?),
meme – info copied from person to person,
teme – info replicated with the use of technology
What happens to Indian service sector jobs when most data in the world is cleaned by it, ready for smarter algorithms to take over those jobs. How can humans remain competitive in spreading ideas than machines? What advantage does human consciousness have over machine intelligence?
Future of apps and e-commerce
Digital is the playground of creation. and the possibilities are endless. Ideas are finding their BIGGEST EXPRESSIONS in this medium. It essentially is an industry of making better and better temes. and hence is rewarded. But how long will it need human ingenuity, human consciousness?
What advantage does human consciousness have over machine intelligence? Google and facebooks of the world are merely competing to be the future rent seekers of access to the temes exchange. The access to global consciousness. Enriching that consciousness will always remain a lucrative opportunity – rewarded in some way or another.
Future of advertising and Oil
Both the industries are in service of globalisation. They were rewarded in the last decade because they were the best soldiers in the relentless march of globalisation. However, that project is nearly over. The world is global and open now. (almost. or atleast as much as it needed to be).
The current project is to build systems to employ this globalisation in the service of efficient teme replication. (So more innovation in form than innovation in content.)
The future project is to streamline the world in service of temes. (Content over form) Advertising and Oil might have a role here.
In the race for relevance, humans will renegotiate the relationship with machines. The illusion of control will vanish.
Ofcourse none of what i said today is original. So I think I should write down some memes that are making my brain their home these days.
1. Kurt Vonneguts ‘Breakfast of champions’ – hence ..machines.
2. Philip K Dick’s ‘Second Variety’ – hence dystopian robots taking over man.
3. ofcourse Susan Blackmore’s idea of temes
4. Facebook showing me articles about tea/ coffee/ sleepiness on a friday afternoon – apt content for everyone. we are so fucking predictable.
