Sitting in front of the Idiot Box and watching CNN report on the American Presidents adventures, for an hour or so, was a surreal experience; with a few changes of the plot and actors, a few tweaks and omissions, you could very well be watching any news channel in Pakistan. The question whether private news channels are pure evil or a mixed blessing, has perhaps been made redundant by technology; albeit for the record I side with the theory of evil. Political battles are today, and expected to be for the foreseeable future, fought on Facebook and Twitter, much before swords are drawn on the electronic media. And while television can suitably be censored, at least if there was a will to do so, the World Wide Web is like the Wild West; anything and everything goes, cyberspace has no morals.

I for one believe that these are ominous developments for those who today cherish all this unbridled freedom; they are all in for a rude shock in the very near future. Why? Well, because any action, or inaction, of any government the world over, is a zero sum game; meaning somebody wins and somebody losses; what might be right for some will be wrong for others. Also forget for a moment that primarily governments are elected to protect the rich and their wealth, even in the case of those few legit decisions which marginally benefit the common man, the losing side can now, armed with fake news and alternate facts, make life miserable for those walking the corridors of power. And worse, there will be no secrets; every decision will be challenged and put on trial publicly.

Shortly, every government including those in the west, if they want to function with normality, will have to start following in the footsteps of Messrs Xi, Putin and Erdogan, and ban social media in their respective counties. Technology has been responsible for destroying many theories, such as Malthus theory of population, Marx's critique of capitalism, protectionism and perhaps nationalism; it will very soon have its biggest prize. The writing is on the wall, technology will shortly have democracy's scalp hanging on its trophy wall.

The good thing about this forecast is that when it does come to roost, all delusions about free speech and freedom in general will be buried once and for all, and the nation might just finally focus on real problems. While we have been leisurely enjoying all this amazing freedom of speech and wasted time collectively trying to interpret the various clauses of the constitution on Facebook, discussing on Twitter which of our ruling elite is not immoral, debating various legal and accounting definitions on WhatsApp and getting entertained by fresh scandals and conspiracies hatched by those whose jobs is to make money selling sensationalism on the electronic media, technology has been destroying a lot more than theories.

Let us accept that except for a bit of noise here and there, education has been, and continues to be the least priority for our politicians, our journalists and even our civic society; results speak louder than all the hype, and our results in one word are pathetic. Perhaps another time we can discuss the various agendas behind keeping Pakistanis illiterate, for now, the net result of this apathy towards education is that majority of Pakistani labour fall in the unskilled category. And this is exactly the segment which technology, Artificial Intelligence, is destroying today.

The factory floor is getting more and more automated today, and it is only for want of capital expenditure, that our factory workers continue to be employed; however as cost of technology continues to decline, automated factory floors will be a fate accompli. In the west technology has more or less taken over agriculture, even harvesting, which used to be pure labour; again, it is not if, but when, automated farming will replace humans in Pakistan. Driverless cars are also just around the corner, pretty soon jobs for drivers will be a thing of the past; which basically has been a source of income for a large segment of Pakistanis in the Middle East. Japan is doing serious work on robots to replace nurses. R2-D2 will soon take over janitorial jobs; and Apple's Siri will shortly make all call centres redundant. Drones will probably take up all available jobs for parcel and mail delivery and perhaps a lot more. This time around, technology industry will land a serious blow to service industry jobs, skilled as well but primarily unskilled, and the way technology is advancing, the death blow is not too far in the future.

As far as I can see, we are not even considering investing in our future, and frankly we aren't even doing a bang up job of the present. Rising debt, falling exports and political chaos, meanwhile the robots march on. And for those who believe CPEC is all we need to worry about; this is what Forbes most recent views are on the subject, "Like Hambantota, CPEC started with loans that will eventually be converted into equity, as it seems very unlikely Pakistan will ever be in a position to pay them back. This means that Beijing will one day own CPEC, and collect tolls from every vehicle that makes use of it".

(The writer is a chartered accountant based in Islamabad. Email: [email protected])

Copyright Business Recorder, 2017