by Charles Hugh Smith
Of Two Minds
Meanwhile, in the lived-in world, our quality of life is unraveling in myriad ways as algorithmically-driven under-competence and mediocrity are now the norm.
When deployed by monopolies / cartels, automation institutionalizes mediocrity, and soon everyone forgets excellence and quality because they no longer have any experience of either one.
And since our economy is dominated by monopolies / cartels, automation has reduced our quality of life across the board. Once the “market choice” of price-constrained consumers has been reduced to one option (monopoly) or a handful of options offering the same price and quality (cartel), then monopolies / cartels have an irresistible incentive (increase profits) to slash costs by automating everything that can be automated, along with reducing the quality of customer service, for why bother spending money on customer service when the customers have no option other than another member of the cartel?