Imagine a future in which all work is done by robots and
automated systems. It isn’t that hard to do, as we can already receive goods by
delivery drone, withdraw and deposit money at any time of day without people
needing to be present, and we can even scan and pay for our own goods at the
supermarket without needing to chat to a bored teller while we do so.
It is relatively easy to see this process continuing, with
company bosses swapping out fallible, expensive humans for robots that do not
require rest, overtime or even payment, instead merely requiring maintenance
and a power supply. Should it so happen that all labour-intensive and menial
work is taken over by robots, what is it that humans will do all day long?
There will presumably still be some jobs that humans are
needed for, but machines can perform operations tirelessly and flawlessly,
calculators and computers can keep track of expenses and even submit tax
returns… Which leaves humans working in more or less one industry exclusively:
that of entertainment.
Films, books and even porn will all still need the human touch
to satisfy the tastes of audiences (which isn’t to say that there isn’t a small
select group who aren’t rooting for robot/ android/ cyborg porn…). Human work
will move into the creative arts – areas that are illogical and intuitive
rather than relentlessly logical and practical.
Porn – and more broadly, sex itself – is sure to keep up
with all the advances in technology, as it does already with virtual reality
and 3D, and may become even more important and mainstream in our new work-free
culture.
Of course, a society in which robots do all the work, one
question demands an urgent answer: What will we all do to earn money? Will
there be some kind of universal ‘salary’ paid to citizens by the government,
the amount ascertained by the GDP of the country? Or will the robots be owned
by individuals and hired out to factories and businesses as needed? While the
last seems to be rather distasteful, a kind of mechanical slavery, it is more
likely that the former will be true – which will leave us with (hopefully)
enough of an income to pay our bills and have a little fun, and more than
enough time on our idle hands for the devil to find work for…
It is almost certain that in such a scenario, a lot of time
will be spent finding partners and having sex; along with enjoying sports and
hobbies and drinking and dining… There may be sexbots by then that make
intercourse a personalised and mind-blowing experience, or it may be that sex
between men and machines becomes taboo for reasons that we cannot yet fathom.