Pass Me My Towel, Robot: An optimistic guide to automation.
Hi Laurie,
What are you going to do when robots take your job?
Caroline
Dear Caroline,
The robots have already taken my job but it's ok because I didn't want it anyway. The uptake in machine-assisted ceramics production has been advancing steadily since (at least) the industrial revolution almost 300 years ago. As with most things, potters are ahead of the curve in this respect.
Although I sympathise with those who are at risk of losing their jobs to robots I have consciously pursued a career that is ultra humanistic. Economically, I sell little bits of myself, which makes all of my customers cannibals. I fruit like a tree and if I am well, my yield is annual, abundant and renewable. I exist in a space few people want to live in, high risk self determination.
My marketplace is wonderfully tiny so there's really no need to make anything quickly or in any great volume. If I automated manufacture I’d have nothing to do. I think the real question is ‘what am I going to do when robots take my customers' jobs (and their capacity for discretionary spending)?’ It may interest you to learn that of the one thousand people who read this letter less than 10% will actually ever buy anything. This means that I need to maintain a customer base of about one hundred interesting, self sustaining humans. Given that there are 8.3 billion people on earth I’d say my odds are pretty good. Selfishly I just need about 100 weirdos to survive.
I am blessed with a short attention span which prevents me from doing boring things in repetition for very long. When I think about having a robot in the studio I immediately think about dancing with it. Really breaking it down to Funkadelic. It’s probably not the fastest way to improve economic returns, but it would be incredibly enjoyable. When we’re not dancing I’ll happily get the robot to help with the cleaning and heavy lifting. I’ll get it to make tea. It will be like an advanced jug or toaster, semi-sentient, available and ready to serve.
But I’ll still do all the best bits, like making the pots, writing these letters and nipping over the road for a swim. I’ll say ‘pass me my towel robot’ and ‘put the kettle on mate’ and we’ll probably get to know each other really well. And if in some dystopian future my robot decides it needs to terminate me, well, hopefully we’ll have established enough mutual appreciation that it just mercifully crushes my head while I’m sleeping.
The world doesn't really need more handmade or robot made pottery. We have plastic buckets now. The question of utility is long solved. My pots are ‘Utility Plus’, because at their best something else is happening, something extra. It is very similar to music. An alternate assemblage of existing materials. A playful disobedience. Like a child who refuses to wear shoes.
There is a misconception that those of us who work in the old crafts despise technology. But I prefer my car to a donkey, typing to writing, an asthma inhaler to death. I like knives and forks, micro surgery and air travel. I have a beard but I’m not Amish. Making handmade pottery for a living is just something I want to do, but I could do other things. One advantage of working in a redundant category is that it frames most other, more sensible work, as being quite manageable.
My father used to tell me that if I had any common sense I would work in advertising. I’d reply that if I wasn't a potter I’d be a poet, because it was the only thing less commercially viable. And because I like poetry. And because common sense is for common people. And because it might really be something, to be a poet in a time of robots.
XL
“The breeze is fresh, The moon so bright - Together - Let’s dance until dawn”
Taigu Ryōkan, Japanese Poet. b.1758 – d.1831. (Image)