| Dream |
February 14, 2019
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| In this country, there was a superstition that the dream one dreamt on the 2nd day of the New Year would become real. A person who wanted to see a certain dream could write one's wish on a piece of paper and put it under his or her pillow. He wrote, "I want to see what the world will be like in 20 years," and put it under his pillow and closed his eyes. Soon he went to sleep. He was walking on the road. Soon he realized that all the cars on the road had human drivers, who were grabbing the steering wheel. He was shocked, "Hasn't auto-driving systems been realized? Maybe some auto-driving systems had some problems and killed passengers; or maybe cars had been easily car-jacked by hackers... " He was passing through a farm land. He was shocked. An old couple was working there, the old woman was sowing seeds, the old man was pushing a cart. No automated farming machines were there. The old man started to stretch out his back. He entered a convenience store. He was shocked because two clerks were at the counter. "Haven't shops adopted an auto  paying system?" He took a newspaper from the stand and checked the issue date, it was '2039'. It was surely 20 years from his era. He wanted to read an article, but the letters were blurred. Maybe because this was a dream. "Maybe the technology of this era might not be as good as I predicted. I should have written '30 years later' or '40 years later'." He got an idea and entered an electric appliance shop and went to the TV corner. After a while, a clerk came to him and asked, "Do you like this? This is a new model." He replied, "I'm sorry to say this, but I expected more advanced ones. This is not so different from my era's." "Your era's?" the clerk asked. He told a lie, "I was abducted for 20 years in another country, and was released recently." He thought this was not bad, but the clerk looked at him as if he thought that he had been in jail. The clerk cleared his throat, and started to explain: "Ten years ago 16K TV was invented, the screen was just as clear as reality. TVs sold well, but soon some problems occurred. People were attracted by the TV and would stay in front of the TV for long periods of time. Some parents neglected taking care of their kids, cooking, cleaning their house, etc. Some workers would take days off without permission and stay in their rooms. Many people who watched too much TV became physically sick or mentally sick, they couldn't tell what was real. At last the government banned to make these advanced TVs." He asked about auto driving cars. The clerk said, "Auto driving cars started about fifteen years ago. And then about ten years ago all cars became auto driving. But soon some people started to return to manual driving cars. They said that riding in a car without driving was boring. At first, people thought that they could have free time in a car, but they soon realized what they could was limited. For example, if they went to work, they couldn't drink alcohol or wear pajamas; they could just read magazines or look at their smartphones. But, like the TVs, people have to refrain from watching their smartphones because they are too good, and looking at their smartphones too much it is not good for their health. So many people started to drive themselves, and it looked fun to others, so others started to follow suit. And now, only a few people use auto-driving cars. He couldn't believe it, but asked, "How about farmers? I saw many farmers throughout the farm lands. I heard that the shortage of farmers was a big problem, although it was a long time ago." The clerk explained: "About 10 years ago, all farm land was planted and harvested by robots. But soon, a funny thing happened. People realized that farming is the ideal work. It demands for the person to move their body, so it's good for their health. It demands for a person to think in order to make for good production, so it's good for their brains. People can work at their own pace. If a crop fails, nobody will be in trouble. It's one's individual responsibility. So no stress. If they get a good harvest, they might be able to share it with others. In addition AI enables new business chances: small amount of products can reach consumers suitably at a suitable price. So people started to rent land and farm it. The government started to help them because they liked people's good health and reasonable priced food. He was amazed, and was going to ask about shop clerks' situation. In this shop, there were cashiers and several shop clerks like this guy. But he didn't. He knew that customers prefer human cashiers because if some problems occurred, humans could handle the situation suitably. Humans are more reliable than robots. And most importantly, it was sometimes fun for customers to interact with them. Actually, now he was talking with this clerk and it was kind of fun. |
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*abduct: 誘拐する
*interact: 交流する