Resisting technology is a battle that no one can win

The author with graduates of unknown university on China has leveraged on technology to become an economic power. We too can do the same. [XN Iraki, Standard]

Arthur C Clarke, the famous science fiction writer lived in Sri Lanka from 1956 to 2008. He was born in 1917 in England.

He formulated three laws. The third one and most quoted states: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

This was in 1973 when there was no Internet and cellular phones were just about to hit the market. One wonders what his fourth law would say if it were formulated today.

The fact that we love magic should make us embrace technology with open arms. How often do we hear of witchcraft, urogi, kithitu, kujul (Sudan), juok, and so on in Kenya? 

Lately, it seems Kenyans are so perplexed by Clarke’s magic, they are rebuffing technology.

Two incidents come to my mind. One tea growing county has proposed a levy for tea picking machines.

The argument is that many jobs will be lost since one machine can do the work of 20 tea pickers. The other is lawyers stopping online land transfers.

Technology makes our lives easier, it is our new slaves. Why should we resist it?

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We spend years training for our professions and occupations.

Lawyers go to schools of law, then through pupilage and then take years to build a reputation.

To imagine that what they do will be taken over by computers is frightening.

Will they go back to school for another course?  It is more frightening for those late in their careers without a safety net. 

Most law firms have a conveyancing department - defined as the transfer of ownership or interest in real property from one person to another by a document such as a deed, lease or mortgage.

If all this goes online, it will deprive lawyers of a key revenue stream.

Am sure most people pay legal fees when buying a plot or a house. Lawyers are supposed to enforce the contracts.

If block chains or other online platforms can do the same, their jobs will be at risk. 

The transfer of conveyance to online platforms will increase efficiency which naturally means less money for lawyers, but it will mean less hassle for the vast majority. 

In the long run, more people will benefit than lose.  Should we sympathise with lawyer’s plight? 

We should, albeit begrudgingly.  They made money when there were no online platforms. 

Economists will tell you that any profitable business attracts players to share profits.

It may be that there is a lot of money in the legal profession and technology players want to share the lawyers’ profits. Let us think loudly. If you do not need a lawyer to transfer your car worth Sh10 million, why do you need one to transfer a plot worth much less, say Sh1 million?

The lawyers have an escape strategy, long resisted in Kenya but is becoming inevitable. Make law a postgraduate degree.

Imagine a lawyer with another degree in computer science and now consulting on block chains.

Imagine a lawyer with a degree in medicine arguing cases on stem cells.

The lawyers’ case is easier to handle. They can shift to other lines of business. The tea pickers have fewer options.

Most have no other profession or trade because of their low level of education.

Their counties should be arguing for the phased introduction of tea picking machines to give “human pickers” time to adjust to the new reality.

The plight of tea pickers also means we must prepare the next generation of Kenyans for the realities of technology.

We have to give our children a variety of skills. Over specialisation might be undesirable in the near future. It is also time to move up the value chain to more value-added activities.

Who designs and repairs the tea picking machines?  Why were combine harvesters not resisted?

Do tea growing counties know even grapes are harvested by machines? In fact, coffee might be the next one to be harvested by machines. 

The truth for lawyers and tea pickers is that you can’t resist technology indefinitely. Throughout history, no one has successfully done that and they can’t be the first.

After resisting computers, we found they created more jobs and even new fields of study. What if we resisted M-Pesa? 

What if we resisted bulldozers so that we employ more road builders?

It is a paradox that we have fully embraced “small technologies” like mobile phones which have made our lives easier but we are unwilling to embrace other technologies that will make farming or contract enforcement more efficient.

One wishes the technology in tea picking can be transferred into other crops. Can we use machines to plant and harvest potatoes, maize, and other staple foods?

Why do we embrace technology in our homes from washing machines to microwave ovens but resist technology that will save us from backbreaking jobs?

Can someone invent a pyrethrum picker?

Can we get an essay marker? In the long run, technology will set lawyers and tea pickers free to focus on more value-added activities and seek innovations.

Noted the popularity of flavoured tea with mint, caramel etc?  Noted the use of internet in legal research?  

Embracing technology moved us from Stone Age to the space age.

Remember there are casualties in every transition; we all hope we shall not be the casualties. 

We can’t talk about economic growth without technology, Nobel Laureate Robert Solow long noted.

That is a fact that we must become used to irrespective of our level of education or stage in our lives.

-The writer teaches at the University of Nairobi