While computers and robots are doing the scut-work of society so that the world, in 2019, will seem more and more to be “running itself,” more and more human beings will find themselves living a life rich in leisure.
This does not mean leisure to do nothing, but leisure to do something one wants to do; to be free to engage in scientific research. in literature and the arts, to pursue out-of-the-way interests and fascinating hobbies of all kinds.
I don’t think he predicted how selfish and vain people are with leisure instead of the pursuit of knowledge and living a richer life. Instead it’s the pursuit of lust and power which drives our debased human motives.
We become more dehumanised as technology can fill a missing void without meaning as social media achieves very little in terms of positive experience as we immerse ourselves to be lost with a host of ‘friends, entertainment and knowledge’ . Social media is a platform not for his understanding of leisure, but ends up making us make us selfish, depressed, jealous and insecure and unable to have meaningful communication and social interaction with each other. Asimov gets some of these correct and explores this in his robot detective series regarding socialisation that robotics and machine dependence brings, sexuality, life and relationships with robots and the ethics of the matter. He just viewed thing more nobly and wouldn’t have seen how destructive social media bring to our lives. Who knows the social media platform may end up being a blip in history to be replaced with something more different and we only see social media through ‘western eyes’ by enlarge.
