Human adaptation to this technological revolution will not occur without conflict between new and old tendencies and objectives

Although the greater use of the brain to create and calculate, together with the frequency of tensions, will encourage and accelerate man’s “plasticity” in adapting to change, the complexity of that adaptation process will create situations of uncertainty that, fortunately, his own technical creations will help him resolve. It is not possible to predict at which stage of the technological era in which we now find ourselves man will achieve the proper balance with his world, but it can be predicted that he will achieve it. The assembly of the technical universe will be a masterpiece of precision, influencing man’s attitude and transforming his tense initial steps into serene confidence.

Electronic technology will facilitate man’s adaptation to that psychic process, not only because it will spare him the fatigue of routinely using the mind to direct monotonous tasks, but also because it will give him a sense of power, so necessary for living with joy and hope. Yet, while this psychic adaptation will be easy, adaptation to the new economic and social activities derived from automation will encounter resistance. Automation will produce a major change in people’s occupations. Once again, technology will have promoted new economic and social groupings, as well as new currents of political and educational ideas.

Automation and the transformation of work

Automation is reversing the proportion in the composition of the workforce in factories and offices in industrial countries. Some of these had, five years ago, a workforce made up of 75 percent operators and workers; now, only 25 percent. At the same time, the number of engineers and technicians has risen from 5 to 45 percent. It can be generally assumed that, in a few more decades, factory work that was regularly carried out under a technical direction representing 5 percent of the physical and manual labor force will be carried out only with minimal technical direction, made up of a body of execution engineers who will receive a general and scientific education.

All calculations regarding the unemployment that automation will bring to industry are based on current conditions, which will change within a few decades. As technical development progresses, the number of people with more free time increases. Modern technology reduces the number of jobs needed to produce and distribute what society requires. It would therefore seem to create a state of unemployment that is dangerous for social stability and well-being. More than one warning has been issued in this regard, symbolizing electronic mechanics as a giant robot advancing in terror and destruction. But the unemployment it creates is only in the field of production and distribution.

The demand for technical knowledge

At the same time, this unemployment is balanced by the demand for technicians capable of building the new machines that are needed, and they will have to devote more time to study. The modern technological world will require more people studying and working than the non-electronic world that preceded us; but not in physical jobs, rather in intellectual, research and experimental work. Technical development is constrained by the lack of specialists with sufficient technological and scientific knowledge.

Advances in electronic mechanics will not create unemployment, because science and technology are on the path to expanding the world in which we live, creating other worlds and new relationships with our universe and between universes. If any fear could exist, it would be due to the shortage of technicians. Efforts are being made to increase the number of people interested in science and technology. There is also talk of making large-scale use of female labor, since electronic technology eliminates the heavy and unhealthy work typical of pre-electronic technology.

There is even thought of rehabilitating and training people who had been set aside, in order to turn them into technicians. The growing formation of engineers in universities and research institutes will require an army of technicians. What will decrease is the number of jobs requiring little qualification; what will increase is the number of jobs requiring high qualification. The problem is one of preparation, not of lack of employment.

In less than a decade, millions of people will not be able to find employment unless they acquire adequate technical training. There is urgency for everyone’s knowledge and preparation to increase, so they can understand, develop and direct the new technological world. This world, created by man, is like a challenge to his capacity for governance.

Economic, social and technical progress will provoke a great demand for products of every kind, because peoples will have begun to consume, something that until now has occurred only on a small scale. The new production systems will satisfy the growing needs of hundreds of millions of people who today consume little, partly because of poverty and partly because they live short lives.