The 1939 New York World’s Fair was a paean to the future.   With its massive trylon and perisphere set as symbols for a new age of prosperity, the Fair celebrated the dual themes of democracy and progress.  Looking back, many view the event as a harbinger not simply of a brave new world of science and technology but of the consumer-driven society that would explode after the Second World War. 

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But as historians note, visions of the future are almost always wrong.  When we look to the future, what we usually look at are things but rarely at behaviors; at technologies but not the unintended consequences of these technologies. 

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Automation and artificial intelligence will almost certainly free us from the drudgery and labors of the past – but also from the jobs that give us meaning and a sense of self. Even if this new-found “freedom” of non-work is balanced by an economic safety net such as universal basic income, we still face the danger of having a large portion of the population rudderless and adrift.

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No one foresaw this more clearly that Aldous Huxley.  For Huxley, the Brave New World of tomorrow was one ruled by technology in the service of consumerism, a world in which the highs and lows of daily living have been replaced by a bland contentment. 

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Compare this to our current situation where both children and adults prefer to interact with computers, smartphones and virtual realities rather than other human beings and you begin to get a sense of the democratic dystopia Huxley envisioned.  

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Is it all inevitable?  In a world without work, how will we define progress?  If our basic needs are provided for, will we be content to merely exist?  Or will we demand more?