I'll wash, you dry, and AI

Two weeks ago, our dishwasher broke. It has been limping along for a while, but with a grinding and whirring sound, it finally gave up. I am fortunate that my husband would always rather fix things than replace them, and has the skill to do that. I’ve learnt a lot from him, and his way of thinking grounds me in a world where we simply throw things ‘away’ and buy new. But this time, after various replacements, the dishwasher really had, well, had it.

Because both of us had busy weeks’, neither of us had the opportunity to do any research on energy-efficient, cost-effective, reduced water consumption dishwashers. The upshot being that we have been washing up for the past couple of weeks.

Last night, with a new dishwasher installed, but no dishwasher salt, we washed up again. Most of the week, one of us had done it and left the dishes to dry on the draining board, but last night there were loads of pots so I washed and Anders dried. We chatted, moved around the kitchen together, came up with some ideas. It was nice. It was relaxing. I slept well. It started me thinking about progress.

I’ve been thinking a fair bit about AI over the past few years. Those in favour of it , and there are lots of them, talk about time saving, efficiency, freeing us up to do more of the things we want to do. Many others feel deeply concerned about the idea of machines taking over jobs and roles and decision-making. The latter are often marked as ‘anti-progress’ by the AI camp, but I don’t see it that way.

Because what exactly do us humans want to DO with all that potential spare time? And even if we knew, would we actually do it?

We have been ‘progressing’ quite quickly for decades now, and the speed is now at breakneck. In theory we have so much extra time now that we use home appliances, food delivery, online banking, and internet shopping. And, if progress is an end in itself, then surely, by now, we should be more relaxed, have more energy, health, leisure time, opportunity to socialise, community connection, or whatever else it is that we long for, shouldn’t we? Or at least we should be well on the way?

Hmmmm.

I think we actually do have more timeway more time than our parents generation where Saturdays were taken up with food shopping and someone had to wash and someone else would dry after every meal. So, I am curious about this idea of lack of time. I’m curious about this world where we keep being promised an impossible dream - that the more we automate, the more time we will have.

So what am I trying to say? It’s not that I am going to leave the dishwasher standing pristine and continue washing up by hand, but it has given me a pause for thought. As we drive harder and faster towards efficiency and move away from the pleasures of work and the pleasures of figuring things out, we are also losing as well as gaining. For all of the time-saving that AI and all the other technology we use every day, we are certainly not more relaxed, content or happy. That far-off speck in the distance will still be just as far away.

On our own, maybe we can’t stop the march of progress, but we can take some of the power back into our own hands.

We can question what it is that we are racing so fast towards.

We can question how much of what we think we want actually comes from within us, and how much comes from what we’ve been told we should want.

We can rate simple pleasures higher than we used to.

We can recognise the things that give us a deep harmonious resonance as opposed to a spiky, wiry ping of dopamine.

It doesn’t mean going backwards, just creating more space for presence.

I’ll wash. You dry?