Technology

Was in Woolworths one day with a friend and I used the automatic checkout service. My friend criticized me saying that using these machines cost the jobs of cashiers. I never thought of that and was like ooh I didn't realize that I won't use it in the future if that is the case.

That is probably the case, however, thinking back I do wonder if new technology brings us convenience, why should we avoid it? There used to be days that every single person has to grow or hunt for their own food and make there own clothes, in modern words everyone's involved in the primary industry, no existence of secondary or tertiary industry at all. Would one say the industrial revolution cost the agricultural people's jobs? It's more like freeing more people from the farms and the wild into factories, where their labour resource was used more efficiently, and increasing local productions by further processing of products from the primary industry. The workers are in turn paid for their own living.

I tend to think the same in terms of adopting new technologies. The automatic checkout machines are more likely freeing cashiers into doing something more productive and something can't be replaced by machines at this stage. And I do believe we have the resource required to train those people to make them fit for the job.

Unemployment is possibly also an indication of development, not to be rude. I suspect the unemployment rate is 0 in a pure primary industry society because anyone who doesn't work dies of starvation. Unemployment simply means someone does not have to work to stay alive with the excess resources produced by the society. Also, the excessive production also allows more education of people and research.

I don't think I need to feel guilty using those automatic checkouts anymore :) The advance of technology is not a crime after all.