How Does Technology Help Us? A Deeper Look Through the Unbundling Lens
In the time it takes you to read this sentence, humanity will have generated over 15 million gigabytes of new data. This relentless torrent of information is just one symptom of a profound technological acceleration that is reshaping our world. We instinctively feel that technology helps us, but to truly grasp its importance, we must look beyond the conveniences and ask a more fundamental question: How is technology changing the very value of a human being?
For the professional seeking to navigate an AI-driven economy, the answer lies in understanding which human skills are becoming obsolete and which are becoming invaluable. For the philosophical inquirer, the question pushes us to define what remains of human purpose when our capabilities are replicated by machines. And for the aspiring ethicist, it demands a framework for analyzing technology's monumental impact on our social contract.
Here, we will explore this question through the lens of J.Y. Sterling's core thesis from "The Great Unbundling". Technology's primary function is to deconstruct, or "unbundle," the package of capabilities—intelligence, dexterity, creativity, emotion—that have defined humanity for millennia. Understanding this process reveals not only how technology helps us, but also the critical choices we face in its wake.
Technology Benefits to Society: The Grand Acceleration of Unbundling
The story of human progress is the story of technology unbundling our limitations. Long before artificial intelligence, tools were already separating human functions from their biological containers, leading to societal benefits that we now take for granted.
Unbundling Physical Labor from Human Muscle
The first great unbundling was physical. The invention of the plow separated the act of tilling soil from the limits of human and animal strength. The steam engine and the assembly line further unbundled production from the hands of individual artisans. This separation led to an explosion in productivity and material wealth.
- The Impact: In 1800, over 80% of the U.S. labor force worked in agriculture. Today, thanks to mechanization, that number is less than 2%, yet food production has soared. This is a clear example of how technology improved our capacity to meet basic needs by unbundling a specific human capability.
Unbundling Information from Physical Proximity
The printing press unbundled knowledge from the painstaking work of scribes and the confines of monasteries. The internet took this principle to its logical extreme, unbundling information from nearly all physical constraints. Today, over 5.4 billion people—or 67% of the world's population, according to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)—have access to a repository of knowledge that was once the exclusive domain of kings and scholars.
- The Benefit: This democratization of information is one of the clearest technology benefits to society, fueling education, cross-cultural understanding, and scientific collaboration on a global scale.
Unbundling Health from Biological Fate
From vaccines to CRISPR gene-editing, medical technology has systematically unbundled human health from the lottery of our birth and environment. We have separated longevity from the natural course of disease, with global average life expectancy rising from under 30 years in the 19th century to over 73 years today, according to the World Health Organization. This demonstrates that technology is essential not just for convenience, but for our very survival and well-being.
Why is Technology Important? The Engine of Modern Civilization
Acknowledging technology's benefits is simple. Understanding why technology is important at a systemic level requires us to look at the engine driving its development. As J.Y. Sterling argues in "The Great Unbundling," modern capitalism is the high-octane fuel for this process.
The relentless pursuit of efficiency, growth, and profit creates an irresistible incentive to unbundle human capabilities. Why pay for a bundled human—with all their needs, emotions, and inconsistencies—when you can isolate the specific function you require and execute it with a machine at a fraction of the cost and a multiple of the speed?
This economic reality is why Goldman Sachs predicts that generative AI alone could expose the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs to automation. Technology is important because it is the primary instrument of our dominant economic ideology. It is the means by which we solve grand challenges, from modeling climate change to accelerating drug discovery with platforms like DeepMind's AlphaFold, which has been hailed as a revolution in biology.
The importance of technology is not a matter of choice; it has become a civilizational imperative, the default path to solving our most complex problems.
How Technology Has Improved: The Cognitive Revolution
The nature of unbundling has undergone a seismic shift. For centuries, technology helped us by augmenting our physical bodies. Now, it has improved to the point where it is augmenting—and replacing—our minds. This is the new frontier of the Great Unbundling.
The Unbundling of Intelligence
When an AI passes the bar exam, it demonstrates a profound shift in how technology is evolving. It is separating the functional, pattern-matching component of intelligence from the integrated human experience of consciousness, ethical reasoning, and lived wisdom.
As J.Y. Sterling notes, "An AI doesn't 'know' justice; it has simply unbundled the statistical patterns of legal precedent from the human struggle for fairness." This allows for incredible efficiency in tasks like document review and case research but raises deep questions about the future of professions once defined by cognitive prowess.
The Unbundling of Creativity
Generative AI tools like Midjourney and ChatGPT are unbundling the act of creation from a singular human artist's lifelong experience and intent. Anyone can now generate a beautiful image or a coherent piece of text, separating artistic output from the years of practice and unique perspective that once defined "the artist."
This democratizes creative expression but also challenges the economic and cultural value we place on human-generated art. This shift represents one of the most significant changes in how we understand artistic value and human creativity.
The Unbundling of Connection
Perhaps most insidiously, social media platforms have unbundled the feeling of social validation from the substantive work of building genuine community. Algorithms are designed to deliver dopamine hits of approval (likes, shares) that are separate from true belonging. Research from institutions like Pew Research Center has repeatedly shown the complex, and often negative, correlation between heavy social media use and mental well-being, illustrating how this form of unbundling can leave us feeling more connected yet profoundly lonelier.
The Re-bundling Response: Creating New Human Value
If technology helps us by taking apart the human bundle, our most vital task is to consciously put it back together in new and more purposeful ways. This is the counter-current J.Y. Sterling calls "The Great Re-bundling."
After technology automates a task, the remaining human value is often found in the holistic integration of skills that machines cannot replicate. The future belongs not to the person who can perform a single task better than an AI, but to the person who can bundle disparate skills in a uniquely human way.
Actionable Insights for the Future:
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For the AI-Curious Professional: Stop competing on efficiency; start competing on wisdom. The most valuable professionals will be those who can re-bundle their technical expertise with skills like empathy, ethical oversight, cross-disciplinary thinking, and persuasive communication. The doctor's value is not just in diagnosis (an unbundled task) but in re-bundling that diagnosis with a patient's values and emotional needs to create a holistic care plan.
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For the Philosophical Inquirer & Ethicist: The challenge posed by technology forces a necessary societal conversation. If the economic value of the "original human bundle" is diminishing, it strengthens the case for policies like Universal Basic Income (UBI). This is not a political choice but a civilizational necessity to provide a stable foundation from which humans can pursue purpose beyond rote labor. This represents a fundamental shift in how we think about economic policy in the age of automation.
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For Every Individual: Embrace purposeful inefficiency. As technology makes life more seamless, we must actively re-bundle our time and attention. This means cultivating hobbies that require physical craft, engaging in deep, undistracted conversation, spending time in nature, and participating in local community. These activities re-bundle our cognitive, emotional, and physical selves in a way that is inherently valuable precisely because it cannot be optimized or automated.
Conclusion: Technology Helps Us by Forcing a New Definition of "Us"
So, how does technology help us? It helps by granting us unprecedented power to overcome our physical and biological limitations. It helps by creating efficiencies that can, in principle, solve humanity's greatest challenges.
But its most profound benefit is the one it forces upon us. By systematically unbundling the skills that once defined our worth, technology holds up a mirror and compels us to decide what is truly essential about the human experience. It is a disruptive, often painful process, but it clears the deck for a more conscious and intentional future. Ultimately, technology helps us by challenging us to move beyond the value we once inherited and to create the value we will choose for ourselves.
To explore the complete framework of The Great Unbundling and The Great Re-bundling, purchase your copy of J.Y. Sterling's "The Great Unbundling: How Artificial Intelligence is Redefining the Value of a Human Being."
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