NORTHERN PLANNER

Ray Kurzweil’s ideas sound daft at first – but before you dismiss him, consider the following:

In the the 1970’s he invented programmes to analyze patterns in composers music and make new scores in their own style.

In 1984 he made the first electronic gizmo that could perfectly mimic acoustic instruments (Stevie Wonder suggested it).

He’s one those technical doers that believes something will be useful and possible and – does it.

Right now he thinks we’re only decades away from clever, conscious computers. Ones that will be able to demand rights and will probably be more intelligent than us. Now of course the problem with futurology is that it’s usually wrong, but look at Honda’s Asimo…machines and computers are already changing our lives, and the process is speeding up all the time. Think of the way mobile phones have truly revolutionised our social lives, or the way the internet has transformed information culture (and social lives too).

You might be worried that with all these machines doing everything for us, we’ll get bored without the trials and tribulations of the daily grind, but just maybe culture is ready…

Consider the emerging behavior of Baby Boomers – over 55’s have all that energy, all that time and all that money. Some (mostly male) try and replace the lost corporate status and usefulness – they try and hold on. But others are beginning to embrace this time of life as a new beginning, a chance to do all the things they wanted to try but never had the chance – in essence an experience culture based on self actualisation. They don’t want to be defined by age, but by attitude.

Anyway, imagine you were a mediaeval serf transported to 2007. Even a poor homeless person would be existing in the lap of luxury to them. Worrying about a home being repossessed isn’t quite the same as fleeing rape and pillage, or avoiding the Inquisition.

So maybe an answer to the question, "How will we stay interested?", would be, "Are you interested now?".

Of course we know that in the 1960’s they were predicting that by now we’d all be enjoying unlimited leisure by by now. But it never happened. Economists have shown that consumerism and our booming living standards are not making us happier – we’re more glum than we were in 1950. That’s thanks to us working our socks off so we can get the latest stuff we don’t need, and then find we get bored with it quickly, so we need to work harder to get more. Maybe the Baby Boomers chasing experiences are showing us the way.There’s plenty of evidence around that we’re ALL craving more time now, with loved ones, but also for ourselves.

And maybe more people will be able to do the kind of jobs that interest them, maybe we’ll have jobs that allow us to have flow – like the way you lose yourself in gardening, or a good game of chess.

That said, after a 200 years decline of working hours, the 80’s saw a reverse – largely thanks to lack of job security. But we still spend more time on leisure too. For the first time, in 1999 we spent more on leisure than clothing, housing food or transport.

So where do we get the time? You could argue that we spend less time with friends, but we also toil less over household chores. Technology has reduced drudgery, which we’ve filled with more work and more fun. But there’s a sting in that tail. Any more technology has a danger of being seen as drudgery too – another booklet to read, more settings to learn. More so than ever, innovations have to be useful and easy to use – take the work AND the thinking away from us. Think about it, our houses are already run by stupid robots – central heating, oven timers, answering machines, Sky Plus…….

That serf looking at us now would think we’ve gone mad. There’s an intense pressure on us to make the most of our down time now. We watch crap reality shows guiltily, we lounge around in pools worried that we should be seeing an art gallery, or wandering through an old cathedral. We eat prepared meals guiltily thinking of unopened cook books.

Maybe we’ll welcome these new machines with open arms, maybe we’re ready to enjoy our time, but you just wonder if leisure will turn into so much hard work…….