I have spent my entire professional life in automation. Effectively, this means I have been replacing people with machines. Many people have very strong feelings about this (the machines, on the other hand, have no feelings at all), but I like to view the automation of labour as a positive thing. Please don’t get me wrong, I am completely sympathetic to the fact that having your livelihood usurped by a robot is terrible. My positive outlook comes from taking more of a bird’s eye view on automation and its essential function: the elimination of hardship. We (humanity) are constantly striving to improve our quality of life and reduce the amount of manual labour needed to sustain our lives. This is certainly a noble pursuit and the fact that you are reading these words from an electronic screen instead of carved into the cold stone wall of a cave is testament to technological advancement being a good thing. So why the bad feelings?

Enter, the economy! Work sucks, but if you compensate me for that sucky work with currency, I can then buy things I need and enjoy. This basic system has worked for human society for millennia; it has its issues, but it’s gotten us this far. So, we now have two powerful forces in direct opposition: automation and technological progress on one side, and a society based upon human-labour on the other. I do not claim to have a solution for how this impasse can be smoothly navigated, and I do not envy the position the world’s governments find themselves in today. The road ahead is fraught and unclear. So let’s just fast-forward through all that turbulent uncertainty and speculate on the possible future waiting for us on the other side!

After automation has eliminated human hardship and all our basic needs are met, a “post-scarcity” society if you will, what will we do with all our free time? I imagine we will simply be doing a lot more of the same things we enjoy doing now, namely spending time with family and friends. For me personally, I foresee a lot of tabletop gaming. Perhaps Friday Night Magic will be expanded to Every Night Magic? The automated world will be a very different place, but I believe games and entertainment will play a considerable role in filling the gap left behind by human labour. If creating an automated card scanning and sorting machine gets us incrementally closer to that fun and games filled future, then I am happy to contribute. And hey, if we make the lives of game store staff easier along the way, I will consider that a win.