Mael_Henaff.jpg

Maël Hénaff

A man at sea picking out a fishing net like object in the sea

Maël Henaff

Democratising technology 

“Collaborating with the local community of Jaywick to mine cryptocurrency through tidal energy.”

In the next 15 years, it is estimated that at least 40% of jobs are going to be replaced by machines. Nowhere is this future more apparent than in Jaywick in the UK where 60% of the population have already either lost their jobs or are out of work, mostly because of the insurgence of automation and machine learning and the inevitable decline of jobs that these technologies have brought about. 

Given the current lack of understanding and debate surrounding emerging technologies, very little is projected about the impact, both positive and negative, that automation and future technologies will have on our society. 

Through this project, Maël collaborated with Jaywick’s local community to create a practical workshop where local people could build fully functioning crypto-miners to allow them a real means of generating a secondary, supplimentary income. 

This call to action aims to not only outline the very real potential of automated technologies but to also stimulate debate as to what we want our collective future to look like, and how we can ensure that future technologies are democratic and support the many and not the few.