We might blame the steam engine. Invented by Thomas Newcomen in 1712 and improved by James Watt a half century later, the steam engine is widely regarded as the machine that both sparked and powered the Industrial Revolution. What began as an innovation to pump water out of mines, the steam engine and its many iterations soon powered paper mills, flour mills, breweries, distilleries, and iron mills just to name a few beneficiaries. The prospects were good. Industry boomed, and as a result, many individuals who had eked out a living on country farms moved to urban centers for work. The results, however, were mixed. While industry continued to grow and evolve, the laborers whose blood, sweat, and tears kept the momentum going grew alienated and lost. Uprooted from their small towns and families, and epidemic of loneliness and despair swept over the land. Romantic poets such as William Wordsworth and William Blake explored these feelings in their poetry and came to the conclusion that a return to nature was in order because that is where the Divine resided. This, of course, was the recommendation of poets, and while those recommendations were eventually enfolded into the culture, the harsh effects of the Industrial Revolution remained. The masses were beginning to feel like animals bereft of purpose, meaning, value, and God. Meanwhile, the titans of industry – Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Morgan, and Ford – grew rich beyond measure. Their storehouses were fabulously large. There did not seem to be any limit to their wealth. And, dear listeners, the masses noticed. Wealth and power were too much in the hands of the very few – the industrial titans, to be sure, but also the royalty or anybody whose riches and power were legacy, not earned. The people rose up in Russia and killed the Romanovs. The people also rose up in China, disrupting a global region in ways that are still felt today. And the revolutions were bloody. Very bloody. The beast that had been yoked for so long turned on its oppressor and chewed it to pieces. I share this bit of history to suggest that the events that led to such wanton killing in Europe and Asia and violent social upheavals in the U.S. might prefigure what is happening in the current year. Specifically, the rise of artificial intelligence is making a very few very wealthy while putting the rest of us – the masses – in predicaments where we have to wonder about the security of our jobs. Once again, the few are getting wealthier while the vast majority is left to wring their hands and suffer. Add to this situation the intentional dumbing down of our society by base entertainment, the overreliance, dare I say addiction, to technology – cellphones, ChatGPT, etc. -- and an education system that is increasingly reluctant to challenge students in meaningful ways and we get a world on the brink of exploding. History is about to repeat itself, but in this case, call it Revolution 2.0. As the gap between those who benefit from AI and those who do not benefit from AI grows, so, too, will the frustration had by the masses that their best efforts will never be enough. Indeed, their best efforts are being replaced. Soon enough, the common man will be as obsolete as a typewriter. This is not me being an alarmist. If current trends in wealth disparity exacerbated by slipping intellectual standards continue, the writing is on the wall. Only this time, it will not be pitchforks the masses are wielding but weapons of a more sophisticated and lethal sort -- killing machines so unlike the steam engine as to be grotesque and nightmarish wielded by the illiterate, the unread, the angry beyond words.
