Why Not Utopia Mark Bittman Analysis

Albert Einstein once said: “I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.”. In Mark Bittman’s article Why Not Utopia? he explores the correlation between a rise in robotic automation and a flawed distribution of income. Robotic automation is an ineffective replacement due to the fact that they will leave the poor people even poorer as a result of job loss, and the rich will become richer because they can afford to have robots work for them. A flawed model for income distribution has led to a significant amount of capital being kept with the wealthiest citizens, who are not spending a significant amount relative to what they make. Robots used for labour in place of skilled workers …show more content…
Autonomous robots are not a sufficient replacement for human labourers due to the fact that they are not trained to react to situations that have not been programmed into them. This is seen in Brian Stableford’s The Highway Code, in which Tom Haste fails to react properly to a situation he had not experienced before: “he had a pretty good idea what must be happening—but hadn’t the faintest idea what to do about it, or whether there was anything at all that he could do.” (Stableford, 44). When robots are used to complete tasks that humans were trained for, this causes a high unemployment rate. The doctors, engineers and other skilled workers will all be replaced by these robots, leading them to become unemployed. Robots required to complete these tasks will be very expensive, and only the most affluent citizens will be able to afford them, leading to an even greater gap between the rich and poor, essentially removing the middle class. In the long-run, this will ultimately lead to the downfall of humanity because very few people will be able to afford the goods that are produced, causing everyone to be worse off. As a result of capitalism, income distribution is inadequate which is concerning for those skilled workers who are barely making enough to get by. The government must tax the wealthy, and provide a liveable income for those poorer people who are struggling to make ends meet. Only when there is a suitable balance in income distribution, will there be a world where all people are able to afford their basic needs. For an economically just society to come to fruition, human labourers must continue to be employed and not be replaced by autonomous