Author: Derek Beres / Source: Big Think
- According to researchers at the US Department of Health and Human Services, 80% of Americans don’t exercise enough.
- Lack of exercise is attributed to $117 billion in annual health care costs.
- With more duties being automated and outsourced to AI, we’re losing our sense of agency.
The annoyance of automated messages when trying to talk to a human at your bank or doctor’s office is dwindling as AI software becomes more “human.” Or, at least, less like software. Responsive robots have infiltrated every facet of life. According to the NY Times, this new wave of voice-automated products do not pretend to be human, as humans reportedly don’t like deception, no matter how much they talk to their toys as sentient friends.
How we interact with software is also changing our physical landscape:
Service workers, sales agents, telemarketers — it’s not hard to imagine how millions of jobs that require social interaction, whether on the phone or online, could eventually be eliminated by code.
Sure, such positions are largely hidden from us, yet automation is also changing retail, where the potential for interacting with actual human beings is going through a similar shift. Not that we pay much attention to those agents either: take one look at a retail line and find most people staring at their phones, barely paying attention to the human in front of them. Still, the lack of physicality points to another disturbing trend.
In a new special communication published in JAMA, researchers from the US Department of Health and Human Services reveal a startling figure: 80 percent of US adults and adolescents are insufficiently active.
Government guidelines state that adults should partake in at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise every week, alongside at least two strengthening workouts. Children need a bit more. Those between ages six and seventeen should be getting their heart rate up at least an hour a day, alongside three strengthening routines per week. This is simply what our bodies demand.
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