One Billion British Pounds Sterling.
That's what the new BBC Broadcasting building cost in 2011.
...and 2 years later?
.... over 500 jobs gone.
.... and 6 years later?
.... 1000 more layoffs.
.... but..... we have a pretty new building. Why does Shelley spring to mind , I wonder?
I took a tour yesterday. A building addition is being planned and the cost will be $1,000,000. When I asked if there would also be new security- of the human analog variety- to check ID and verify each person and parcel- the answer was "No." Adding another employee cost too much.
$1,000,000 for brick and mortar- no problem.
$50,000 for one job- nope.
Now I don't know how many of you have been in buildings without checkpoints- where only digital surveillance is used. I often wonder if anyone is watching the video feed. I wonder how easy it is to cut the feed- or steal the feed. I wonder who is watching. I wonder where the blind spots are. I've seen demonstrations of facial recognition (think talking to Siri with a head cold) and demonstrations of mind-reading (scary as all hell). I think of all that and I'm swinging more and more to the view that , yep, AI will replace humans. We already value AI and tech more than "us".
We value what we build more than the people who build.
That isn't anything new. The Great Wall, the Pyramids, Borobudur, Angkor Watt... there is a legacy which reaches beyond the builders in these... and yet... and yet... when I see handprints of Anasazi mud brick ... when I see the paint pots left on the floors of Pompeii ... when I see the snapline in an Egyptian Architect's tomb... when I can run my hand over ancient hewn wood and sense the strokes of the adze... those lives may have been nasty brutish and short but there is something of the builders left behind ... some breath... some sweat... some self.... It's why there is a weaver's path in a Navajo rug to let the life of the weaver escape on the path of the thread.
Isn't that really the source of our fascination? We don't fear the Great Ozymandias but we sense the hands which carved the stone and the minds which shaped the metal.
That's what the new BBC Broadcasting building cost in 2011.
...and 2 years later?
.... over 500 jobs gone.
.... and 6 years later?
.... 1000 more layoffs.
.... but..... we have a pretty new building. Why does Shelley spring to mind , I wonder?
I took a tour yesterday. A building addition is being planned and the cost will be $1,000,000. When I asked if there would also be new security- of the human analog variety- to check ID and verify each person and parcel- the answer was "No." Adding another employee cost too much.
$1,000,000 for brick and mortar- no problem.
$50,000 for one job- nope.
Now I don't know how many of you have been in buildings without checkpoints- where only digital surveillance is used. I often wonder if anyone is watching the video feed. I wonder how easy it is to cut the feed- or steal the feed. I wonder who is watching. I wonder where the blind spots are. I've seen demonstrations of facial recognition (think talking to Siri with a head cold) and demonstrations of mind-reading (scary as all hell). I think of all that and I'm swinging more and more to the view that , yep, AI will replace humans. We already value AI and tech more than "us".
We value what we build more than the people who build.
That isn't anything new. The Great Wall, the Pyramids, Borobudur, Angkor Watt... there is a legacy which reaches beyond the builders in these... and yet... and yet... when I see handprints of Anasazi mud brick ... when I see the paint pots left on the floors of Pompeii ... when I see the snapline in an Egyptian Architect's tomb... when I can run my hand over ancient hewn wood and sense the strokes of the adze... those lives may have been nasty brutish and short but there is something of the builders left behind ... some breath... some sweat... some self.... It's why there is a weaver's path in a Navajo rug to let the life of the weaver escape on the path of the thread.
Isn't that really the source of our fascination? We don't fear the Great Ozymandias but we sense the hands which carved the stone and the minds which shaped the metal.
So why do we value the work
more than the worker?
The obvious answer is that the work doesn't talk back except with the voices in our own wee little minds.... which brings me back to AI. What happens when the building does talk back and we disagree?
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