Reflecting on Blockbuster as We Consider the Future of Work
There is a touchstone I have when thinking about the future of work and human value.
There is an ongoing concern that once we have machines doing much of our work, we will become listless and confused. We will hang out and play video games all day.
Aside from the fact that just because work is done for us that doesn’t mean that we can't still participate, there is an example that always comes to mind when I think about what happens to us when we have time on our hands.
In 2017, as the last Blockbusters were closing, there was one store in Texas that had a customer who had been going there three times a week for over 7 years. He was Hector Andres Zuniga, a 20-year-old man with autism who was non-verbal.
Going to the Blockbuster was a fixed point in his day, and the possibility of losing it crushed his parents. So, they reached out to the owner and staff and put together a plan. They bought up the DVDs that Hector tended to watch, as well as stands and signage. With the help of the staff, they recreated a Blockbuster experience for Hector in their home. As his father said, “Those employees really came out to bat for my son. They really paid attention and did a hell of a job.”
Once the store closed, they showed the empty space to Hector and then brought him home to his own Blockbuster experience. As his dad said, “It’s hard for my son to express emotions. But when he saw the room, his eyes were as big as saucers.”
Now, the effort the family put into it was expected, but the staff and owner were closing things down and looking for other work. But they did it anyway.
The story always kills me. It is the story of people working for someone that they will probably never see again with no reward for them.
It is also a rare story. And the question is why?
One part of the answer is that we don’t have time. We work, and our value is, far more often than not, tied to that work, what we are paid, and the status that it gives us. So, we don’t do a lot of what we could for others.
There are so many issues in the world related to mental health, safety, community, equality, etc. that we don’t spend time on because we have neither the time nor the inclination because people who genuinely care for others are not seen as valuable so much as outliers.
When I say that AI can change us as a species, it is based on the hope that as we work less, and less of our value is tied to that work, we can transform into a species that spends time caring for each other. We can transform the value proposition of humanity into attending to others. That doesn’t mean that we won’t work or can’t work. It means that the work will not define us.
One of the greatest regrets that successful people tend to have later in life is that they did not attend to those around them. As we need to work less, we have an opportunity to change that dynamic and change the metrics we use to look at our own lives. To focus more on what we are as humans.
Of course, we may not be up to it. I tend to believe that we are.
You can find the original story here. It always, and I mean always, makes me cry and then long for what we can become.
Kristian Hammond
Bill and Cathy Osborn Professor of Computer Science
Director of the Center for Advancing Safety of Machine Intelligence (CASMI)
Director of the Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence (MSAI) Program