One of the signs of growing older is that you feel out of synch with the times, as if you're living in a world you no longer recognise. I sometimes experience that rather queasy sensation when I step into my local Casino, which is full of those automated cashier machines that force you to scan barcodes yourself. No human interaction required.
Apart from the fact that some people only leave their homes because they desire human contact, this seems to be a fairly irresponsible innovation on the part of the supermarket chains. We're in a period of mass unemployment - yet all Big Retail can think to do is improve its profit margins by replacing people with machines. Public transport is heading in the same direction, to judge by line one of the métro.
It makes me wonder when publishers will replace journalists with machines. After all, flesh and blood writers are a liability. We complain and ask for pay rises, we have hangovers and lunch breaks, we don't like writing about advertisers and at night we go home, even though the website still has its mouth open, perpetually hungry for words. I bet some publishers would like to replace us with an algorithm that endlessly churns out short, tidy, formulaic articles, just to fill the spaces between the ads. And as for the poor unemployed writers, we wouldn't even be able to get a job in a supermarket.
