I learned something about my subconsciousness today. At my job I do a lot of data entry, and on certain fields it can complete what you’re about to type if it’s known in a list (like all the cities in California or something like that). Anyway, when I’m typing the name of a city, I noticed that I somehow know exactly when I have enough letters for it to know which city I am typing. I don’t even have to look before pressing enter. It only works for those that I’ve already typed manually, though. And it doesn’t work when I try to do it or when I actually think about doing it. So my guess is that I know it subconsciously.

I end up doing a lot of things automatically without thinking at my job….

“The bane of my existence is doing things I know a computer could do for me.”

-Dan Connolly, The XML Revolution

I think this is the general feeling of anyone involved in computers. Don’t get me wrong—I’m glad I have a job, and I’ll do it because we don’t have the technology to scan papers in very well yet…. But the hope of technology is that people will only do jobs that machines can never do. Hypothetically a machine could do my job much much better than I could. And I’d be glad if one such machine did so, because then I’d be freed up to do a job that the machine couldn’t do: think.

I tend not to be very sympathetic towards those who complain over losing their jobs to machines. If you are doing a job that a machine could do better at, then you could instead be doing a job that is uniquely human. It would be more fulfilling anyway. (Of course, life is rarely that simple, so in that I do sympathize—jobs aren’t the easiest thing to find.) But I think that is the vision of the technologist: humans freed to think. According to Aristotle, intellect is our highest capacity, and therefore use of it is where our highest happiness resides. Perhaps in some way technology frees us to be more human.