Something strange has landed at Schnucks: do-it-yourself, automated checkouts, complete with an electronic female voice designed to soothe the savage shopping beast inside. Before critiquing the new invention, I decided to try one out. Despite some problems locating bar codes and issues with vegetables (how do you scan an apple anyway?), my experience went smoothly.

Now I am no Luddite. After all, I am part of the new technology-savvy generation, adept at downloading music, instant messaging and talking on the cell phone all at the same time. Nevertheless, I get an uneasy feeling with some of the new technology sprouting up all over the place. Is there really a need for automatic scooters as a replacement for walking on city streets? We all get less exercise as it is; I don’t think the elimination of walking would be something to cheer about.

Besides, all this technology, in addition to speeding up our society, is also cutting down on human interaction. We can spend days without ever seeing another human being. While it certainly is incredible to order books in my pajamas, it also makes me pause. When everything we need can be ordered from the Internet, why ever leave the house? Even here at Saint Louis University, I often found myself instant messaging people my freshman year, instead of walking over to talk to them or calling them on the phone. While technology is bringing us together in some ways, it is also driving us apart.

In addition, these dramatic increases in (sometimes useless) technology are causing problems for many of the workers of the world. If they can create a machine for self-service checkout, who needs cashiers? Of course, making new technology is clearly creating jobs for those on top–the educated–but the people on the bottom keep getting screwed over.

For the SLU student most of these technological leaps are a good thing. We are soon to be the educated ones presiding over or creating these wondrous machines, but in the long run, things could turn ominous. Not ominous in an “Attack of the Killer Computers” or “When Intel Chips Attack” way. No one thinks machines are going to enslave humankind (well, except for a few science fiction writers). Rather, the reality ahead is more mundane, but no less worrying.

At the increasing rate of technological advancement, a variety of blue-collar jobs are going to vanish with the wind (either that or move to third world countries and exploit people). What does that leave? A whole lot of unemployed, impoverished and angry people in America whose jobs have been replaced by machines.

The same thing occurred with the beginning of the Industrial Revolution–a lot of unemployed, impecunious English workers who had been kicked out of their jobs by machines. A group of them got angry and began smashing machines–and so the Luddites were born. I’m not bemoaning the Industrial Revolution, but it is important to remember that quite a lot of people suffered during that time.

The end result of all advancement is the same–more education is needed to make the same amount of money. But getting to that point is long and painful, and for the suddenly unemployed it can be difficult if not impossible to go back to school to be able to lift yourself up.

So what to do? A congressional ban on technological improvements is not likely or even desirable. But perhaps a closer, more ethical look at the way technology affects our society and job market, and ways to help those people who have been left jobless through no fault of their own. Currently, the way we treat the poor is shameful. They are a hidden underclass in our society. Even SLU students, who perhaps have better opportunities than most due to our location to see and meet the poor, do not make that effort.

Although there is an admirable amount of service done by the students here, there is not enough face-to-face, daily interaction with the poor to get a real understanding of the desperation of their circumstances.

It is time for us to think critically about technology and its roles in our lives, especially when it cuts down on our human interactions and replaces human jobs. Just because it is technological progress does not mean it is automatically beneficial. So next time you are standing in line at Schnucks, waiting for your real, live, human cashier to ring you up, go ahead and smile. In a few years, those cashiers might not be there, and who wants to smile at a machine?

Lubna Alam is a senior studying history.