The coupling of technology and work has always brought about acrimonious debate.
On the one hand, it is recognised that throughout history, technology has consistently changed the way workers across every economic sector do their jobs.
In some respects, technology has improved working conditions, while in other aspects it has made them worse.
Its impact on the work environment has streamlined tedious and environmentally wasteful processes, created easier access to work while increasing productivity significantly and made working from anywhere easier than ever.
Workers today are more productive than they have ever been. What used to take hours now can take minutes.
The downside is that technology has also made some work very tedious and very routine. In the meantime, workers are expected to continue producing at the same pace, creating stress and anxiety.
Another cause of anxiety is whether or not there will still be jobs for workers who might one day be replaced by technology.
Technology and the economy, together with other elements, need to facilitate the achievement of material and spiritual life that matches the dignity that each and every human person already possesses
Over the years, certain jobs just disappeared and they will continue to disappear.
Activities that previously used to be done by a team of people can now be done by one person.
People who had certain aspirations about the way they expected their career to develop have seen their career paths blocked.
There are those who believe that technology has made work less human.
This brings us to the title of this week’s contribution.
I have written in the past that the human person should not be seen simply as a producer or a consumer or an economic being. We need to look at the human person in one’s wholeness.
The human person reaches one’s fulfilment when all aspects of one’s life are allowed to develop.
This is why the human person needs to be the central person in all the economic decisions we take.
The economy should be subject to the human person, and not the other way round.
The same statement needs to be made about technology. Technology needs to be subject to the human person and not the other way round.
As such, when we speak of technology, the economy and work, the human person takes priority, and all other aspects follow. This ensures the integral human development I have referred to.
Unfortunately, discussions on the development of new types of technologies, including new generations of artificial intelligence, robotics, augmented and virtual reality, blockchain, internet of things and 5G focus on the economic opportunities that these create but do not reflect at all on the human person.
No consideration is taken of ethical issues, of the risk of increasing income inequalities, of creating further marginalisation of certain segments of the population.
In this regard, Catholic social teaching provides significant guidance.
Technology and the economy, together with other elements, need to facilitate the achievement of material and spiritual life that matches the dignity that each and every human person already possesses.
As we continue to combat successive waves of the coronavirus and technological developments continue to take place, and the world of work is impacted by both, this is an opportunity that we cannot afford to miss out on – technology is a tool to promote integral human development.
A blessed Christmas to all.