Yesterday I went to Akihabara. I wandered from bookstores to the electric district, chatting with a friend—an engineer who lives there— and just strolled around aimlessly.
What we kept coming back to was this: ‘Being able to walk around like this on a weekday morning— isn't that a huge privilege?’
It's true that being an engineer today often means freedom of time and place. So much work can be done entirely online. Some even work just two or three days a week and still make more than the average salary.
But rather than a privilege to boast about, I felt it might be closer to a more ‘human’ way to live.
You walk the morning streets, work when you want, rest when you want. Even as you assemble code in your head, you still feel the light and sound of the real world.
Perhaps it's the society that calls this laziness that is out of balance.
Of course, such freedom carries guilt.
‘Maybe I'm the only one fortunate.’ ‘Compared to those working five days, eight hours, am I taking the easy route?’
Many engineers probably feel this. Which is why we should ask: how do we share this freedom with others?
Engineering—and AI-driven automation— lightens the load of others' labor. If the time and mental space we've gained can be returned to society as a path others can also take, then that is our responsibility.
Walking through Akihabara I thought: people are not alive just to work. We wander, pick up books, talk, and laugh. That's where humanity and happiness live.
I hope engineers will be ‘technologists of restoring margin’— bringing back that space in life.