A Cursor Story

Chapter 16: Arguments For

Ryan directly reached the spot in front of the GRIID headquarters where the disgruntled youth have congregated to launch a protest against the GRIID. There were approximately 400 to 500 young girls and boys flashing placards written with 'Down the GRIID', 'GRIID is Greed', 'Cursor is a Curse'. Protesters took turns to raise the slogans. The voice of slogans raised filled the large open park in front of GRIID headquarters. Popular news channels were covering the protests live.

A young sporty TV reporter took the mike to Mr. Mark Fenelon, Male, age 31, an Italian expatriate in the US.

'Mr. Mark I am Cathy from Channel 9... You are leading the protests, what are your key demands?'

Mark composed himself and gathered words before replying, 'Our demands are just and simple. Cursor based software development powered by the GRIID had skewed the labor market disproportionately. It is widely thought that the invention of Cursors has made life easier for some but actually it had made life difficult for a lot of others. Earlier the job of a software engineer or a coder was considered a prestige which with growing experience gave not only a livelihood but also a career and satisfaction. Now the job of coding has been hijacked by the GRIID. The Cursors are writing all the code starting from scratch. Human intervention has become minimally restricted only to providing specifications. That too is reducing day by day since they are capable of progressive learning. They are becoming efficient with each passing millisecond due to the hard work of our engineers. It's the power quantum processors searching through the databases of earlier codes written manually by our engineers and extracting efficient design patterns then writing better code. We are paying for our own hard work. This is not done. Over the years the jobs have shrunk nearly by 60%. It is going to shrink further,'

'But what exactly do you want, technological progress always comes with a price?' the TV reported tried to catch Mark in a quagmire of arguments and counter-arguments.

'First, let me explain the economics of it. It is not true that the GRIID is cheaper than human labor. It is the monopolistic practice of the company operating the GRIID which has kept the prices so low that all the businesses are attracted to it. It is a part of a long term market strategy. Once they offer their services at mindlessly cheap rates. This is going to make everyone so used to their services that later when they raise the rates the market due to inertia does not stop using their services but keeps buying it at the higher rates. Still they harp about their revenue losses. It is the innocent engineers who are caught in the midst of all this. Our demands are quite straight forward, we are not against any technological progress. But we want our colleagues to be reinstated. Our representatives must be part of the pricing committee of the GRIID responsible for the Cursor initiative.'

'But what you are talking about is the job of regulators?' The TV reporter was ready to fire another question when Ryan arrived. The protesters turned their heads towards Ryan as she arrived. TV reporter ran towards Ryan without waiting for the answer of Mark to her question. Protesters raised placards above and started raising their slogans. Ryan took mike of the TV reporter.

'I am Ryan, a representative of the GRIID Inc. I am here to listen to your worries and dispel the myths about the GRIID.'

All protesters raised the slogan, 'Ryan go back,' loudly. Mark indicated them to tone down and extended his hand towards Ryan to offer a handshake. It was one of the most powerful handshakes Ryan had ever done.

'Mark, you gathered all of them on the basis of contrived arguments but let me tell that it is not the Cursors running on the GRIID have eaten away their livelihood. It is the companies where they have been working.'

'But, their companies have opted for Cursor based software development which led to the layoffs at such large scale'

'I agree Mark but we did not cajole them to shift their developmental job to GRIID. They did it out of their own volition.'

Ryan was careful enough not to say anything which can tarnish the image of the company or hurt its business prospects. The TV reporter was covering the conversation between Ryan and Mark live.

Ryan shifted gears of his argumentation, 'This technological revolution is not new, you look carefully in the history of mankind such revolutions have taken place several times and each one of them has caused some disruption in the patterns of the workforce. But over time the both workforce and the businesses get accustomed to the new level of efficiency. This has happened when the steam engines were invented or when the Computer was invented. People augment their skills and get re-employed in the newly formed sectors of the economy.'

Mark was not ready to buy Ryan's ingenious argument.

'Ryan, I have heard this argument a number of times. But this time the situation is different. We are not talking about learning new skills or upgrading our knowledge. This is a plain and simple threat to the existence of several disciplines. Today it is the coding guys, tomorrow when the Cursors learn to sing a song, compose music or write the next New York Times bestseller, it will be the singer, the musician and the author. Try to look at it from that perspective. Tomorrow it could also be people like you.'

Police siren ... There was an announcement, 'This protest has been declared illegal. Please vacate this place right now.' Protesters were forced to vacate the place in front of the GRIID Inc. This effectively meant an end to protest as of now.

'Ryan, this is not done, you and your company made police take this extreme step. You will have to pay for this. I shall come back.'

TV reporter turned to the camera and started her reporting, 'Protesters who have gathered here for the last 36 hours are being dispersed by the Police. How they are going to take protests forward is not clear yet. Mr. Mark the leader of the protesters has said that he will come back. What does it really mean is the question. Be with our channel Channel 9 and the latest updates. Keep watching. It's Cathy reporting live from the GRIID Inc. Bye for now.'

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