The Future of Work: Digital Metamorphosis and the New Human Condition

Work transformation in the age of technology manifests not simply in the form of technological transformation but in an ontological revolution, a restructuring of human beings in the world at its most fundamental level. Looking at how work in a virtual environment brings about a kind of “quantum consciousness splitting, “ in which workers occupy several mental spaces at a single point in time: present in real space but extend themselves in several virtual spaces [1, 2]. Splitting consciousness is not a mere psychological state but a new level in humanity’s evolutionary development, in which one must become a master living in several realities at the same time.

Remote work [1] generated a sort of “digital embodiment paradox” — Employees must have flesh and blood but spend most of their lives in a virtual state. This creates a perverse sort of bodily alienation, in which one’s physical presence signifies work lifeless, but at the same time is subjected to new regimes of virtual bodily discipline. Workers must practice “somatic programming,” consciously controlling one’s corporeal presence in an attempt to maximize virtual presence through careful planning about lighting, camera position, and background arrangement.

The “digital osmosis” occurs when workplace technology [7] begins altering cognitive routines in humans. As living organisms adapt to the environment through evolutionary processes, workers’ “tech-cognitive adapt,” and thinking processes become increasingly similar to computer logic. It is not a matter of creating new capabilities but a retooling of consciousness at its most fundamental level in terms of machine intelligibility compliance. Augmenting human capabilities and transforming human nature at the root level have become increasingly indistinguishable.

Consider the proliferation of what can be termed “chronological arbitrage” in global distance work [5]. Employers increasingly utilise not only wage discrepancies but also times-zone discrepancies, creating a sort of “temporal sweatshop, “ in which workers in times-zones apart are stitched together into an unending 24-hour workflow. What emerges is new forms of “circadian capitalism” in which organic times become commoditised, creating a sort of “temporal precarity” — a dislocation of organic times for the sake of global flows of capital.

The use of AI in workplace infrastructure [7] brings about a form of “algorithmic symbiosis” — a point at which artificial and human intelligence become complementary but increasingly indistinguishable. Workers’ “cognitive mimic,” reorienting thinking in a form compatible with algorithmic necessity, and AI infrastructure continue to develop to increasingly predict and shape human behaviour. It brings about a form of “intelligence convergence, “ in which the borders between artificial and human cognition become increasingly blurred.

A blended workplace [1] generates a form of “spatial schizophrenia, “a condition in which workers must maintain coherent work selves in radically disparate environments. This generates new forms of “context collapse anxiety, “ in which work and private spaces become increasingly insecure borders. Workers develop sophisticated forms of “environmental code-switching,” altering behaviour and presentation at a pace in a matter of seconds between virtual and real spaces.

The technology of workplace observation creates a form of “quantum visibility” in which workers exist in a state of “superposition” in which at any one location, and in any one location, workers can both be present and not present, both seen and not seen, both acting and not acting, both “really” and not “really” present in a workplace at least partially constructed and inhabited through technology and technology-facilitated sociality.

The gig economy [9, 10] induces a state of “identity liquefaction, “ in which working life increasingly proves contingent and in flux. Workers become “portfolio subjects,” reconstituting and reconfiguring their skills and selves about shifting marketplace demand. It creates new forms of “existential precarity” in which working life no longer holds any solidity but is a flexible collection of sellable qualifications and competencies in flux.

Classic career development yields “quantum skill accretion, “a position in which workers must build capabilities in many concurrent potential forms simultaneously. Traditional expertise yields “adaptive competency”: the skill to reframe one’s expertise and capabilities in a matter of seconds to respond to ever-changing marketplace requirements. It generates new types of “cognitive spec” in which workers must speculate and gear up for many concurrent potential future skill requirements at a single point in time.

Consider how computer communications produce what one can call “affective bandwidth compression” — the imperative for conveying rich, complex emotions through increasingly thin computer channels. What comes out is new forms of “affective optimization” in which workers have to learn to manage the expression of emotion in a computer-constrained environment in a manner that maximizes its impact. What comes out is a new form of emotional intelligence that does not work through organic interpersonal contact but through the calculated manipulation of computer emotion cues.

In the future, we must realize that not only are we witnessing a reshaping of work, but a reshaping of social relations and human consciousness at its most basic level. Not only is work transforming, but its interfaces with and between machines, work and life, and virtual and real are not merely becoming blurred, but are re-engineered systemically and intentionally to yield new forms of existence.

The future of work then stands in for a critical battleground in reshaping human consciousness in the technology age. The question of how to react to new technology, and the question of how to make such accommodations work for human flourishing, not merely for optimizing human behaviour for computer programs. To achieve this function, new frameworks for mapping and governing complex relations between computer programs, social structures, and human consciousness must be constructed to map out a new work world.

References

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