The Meaning of Post-Labor and the Value of a Liberal Arts Education in the Age of Intelligent Automation

Abstract

This article discusses about the meaning of post-labor and the value of liberal arts education in the era of intelligent automation, where the value of human labor and knowledge is changing. In particular, it examines the nature of Automatic Society based on digital information technology and the conditions of human life from the perspective of French technology philosophers Simondon and Stiegler. Based on this, the article reveals the importance of liberal arts education as a new life ‘ars’ in the post-labor society that will come with artificial intelligence. Simondon's technical mentality and technical culture reveal a new model of post-labor existence that enables people to organize their work and public activities alongside AI, rather than in competition with it. Stiegler embodies Simondon's outlook by calling for a transformation of the crisis of labor and spirit caused by the algorithmic governmentality of Automatic Society into an opportunity for the invention of new kind of knowledge and work. The era of intelligent automation shifts the paradigm of life from labor productivity and expertise to post-labor and liberal arts. We need to cultivate life ‘ars’ so that the time freed from labor due to automation can be used to take care of our own lives and the lives of others, inherit our cultural traditions, and produce new values.Liberal arts education should move toward fostering digital literacy with a humanistic outlook in order for us to understand the human condition of living in an automated technological environment and to discover the value of the human spirit and the meaning of human life.