In Japan, warehouse robots are remotely controlled by Filipino workers who are paid a pittance. Is this technological progress? Absolutely not. It’s just another indignity to add to the age-old story of man exploiting man. Because behind the robots and virtual reality headsets, it’s always the same logic: a small number of privileged people get rich at the expense of the majority.

Traveling is understanding that the West is a fortress of privilege

When you’ve spent years in countries where most people work themselves to exhaustion for indecent wages, you realize that despite growing inequality, the West remains a place where people live fairly well. But we need to recognize that this bubble of comfort, social rights, and economic stability has been built on the backs of the rest of the world.

Take the case of a Filipino worker. If he stays in his country, he’ll have to make do with a salary often less than $100 a month for 12-hour days or more, all without any decent social protection. If he migrates to the West, even for a thankless job, he’ll consider it a major step up. He’ll have access to a well-equipped home, his own car, a good education for his children, quality medical care. In short, all the things we take for granted but which represent symbols of success for someone from a disadvantaged country. Meanwhile, in the West, we continue to believe that our comfort is solely the result of our merit.

To help us forget our doubts, we’ve been fed empty slogans since childhood like “the early bird gets the worm” or “you have to work hard to succeed.” Yet bakery workers don’t become millionaires, and the heirs to great fortunes don’t break a sweat maintaining their empires. The truth is that the rules of the game are written by those who already own everything, and everyone else has no choice but to fight for the crumbs. Big crumbs for us Westerners, small crumbs for the rest of the world.

Offshored slavery is the Roman Empire 2.0

The Roman Empire had its citizens and its slaves. Today, we have our migrants and our offshored workers. The difference? The chains have become economic and technological rather than physical.

In Roman times, a slave was property, on the same level as an object that could be bought, sold, or inherited. Their enslavement was visible: irons on the wrists, metal collars, markings on the skin. Violence against slaves was openly accepted and even codified in law. Nowadays, the chains have changed form, but their function remains exactly the same: to keep millions of human beings in a state of permanent submission. What’s changed is deeply cynical because the system manages to give modern slaves the illusion that they’re free.

Take, for example, a Filipino worker who operates a robot in a Japanese convenience store (konbini). Officially, he’s an employee. He signed an employment contract. He receives a salary of about $300 a month, just enough to survive in Manila. Sure, he doesn’t have irons on his feet, but they’ve been replaced by a virtual reality headset strapped to his skull for ten hours a day and the constant threat of dismissal if he doesn’t keep up the pace. It’s not his body that’s chained, but his mind.

Because today’s chains are debts. Debts incurred to pay for training that leads nowhere, to care for a sick parent, to send children to school in the hope they’ll escape this vicious cycle. In the Philippines, as in so many other countries, entire families go into debt for generations to finance education or professional opportunities that, at best, only lead to precarious jobs. As a result, someone who has to repay a loan can’t afford to refuse a job, even if it makes him sick. He also can’t unionize or demand better conditions. He’s completely trapped in a financial snare that keeps him in a state of permanent dependence. In this setup, it’s the bank or the microcredit lender that replaces the Roman master.

But it’s the same everywhere. In the West, the middle classes keep sinking into decline. The whip has been replaced by high-tech tools. Amazon warehouse management algorithms, for example, time each employee’s movement and fire them if they take too long in the bathroom. Uber or Deliveroo platforms track the real-time location of their delivery drivers and impose inhuman paces under penalty of deactivation. This raises the question: is modern slavery becoming widespread?

While the new technology that promised us paradise on Earth devolves into a real hell, work is outsourced to places where labor is cheapest and least protected. With technologies like robotics operated remotely by humans, slavery has never been so profitable. Modern masters no longer need to house or feed their slaves, much less care for them when they fall ill.

The most perverse aspect of this tragedy is that this new form of slavery claims to be modern by using language that reinforces the illusion of freedom. We no longer talk about slaves but about independent workers or freelancers. They’re sold the dream of flexibility, autonomy, and the possibility of one day climbing the ladder to exploit others in turn. But in reality, their freedom will always be reduced to choosing between different forms of precarity or ending up homeless.

In Rome, slaves were not considered people but tools. Today, remotely operated robots are presented as a solution to labor shortages but never for what they really are: a way to bypass workers’ rights and social protections. In the end, the Filipino worker is no longer a human being in the eyes of his Japanese employer because he has, in a sense, merged with a machine.

And then what? What will become of these modern slaves once AI is efficient enough to do without them? Unfortunately, they won’t be freed. They’ll simply be completely replaced by technology in the same way an obsolete tool is replaced. Because in the capitalist system, ordinary people aren’t considered citizens. They’re just costs to be minimized and variables to be adjusted.

How long are we going to remain indifferent to this intolerable situation? Until Musk’s fortune reaches a trillion dollars and we all have empty pockets? I ask these questions because greed has no limits. Absolutely none. If we don’t impose any, as is currently the case, there’s not the slightest chance that our societies will progress toward wellbeing. In other words, things will continue to get worse and worse, probably until it ends very badly for everyone.

Are robotics and AI tools of liberation or domination?

Imagine a world where machines take over the most arduous, repetitive, and dangerous tasks. In this system, automated systems would free up hours of our day so we could devote them to what really matters: creation, human relationships, learning, or simply leisure.

During the postwar boom years (1945-1975), we still believed that technical progress would lead to a society where everyone would work less to live better. Economists like Keynes even predicted a 15-hour workweek thanks to automation. Yet today, this promise has been largely betrayed. In reality, technology has never been used to liberate humanity but only to maximize the profits of corporate elites.

Sure, robots and artificial intelligence have begun to replace arduous jobs. Except that instead of reducing working hours, they eliminate jobs without any compensation. This forces the remaining workers to accept ever longer working days, miserable wages, and growing precarity.

The worst part is that this monstrous logic extends to all sectors. Even remote work, which was supposed to free us from the constraints of the office, has most often turned into a gilded prison where we work more and have to be reachable at all times. The savings companies make (offices, equipment, heating, air conditioning, electricity) are very rarely redistributed. Instead of helping us emancipate ourselves, technology has created a new form of servitude: remote exploitation, invisible and even more brutal.

The real scandal is that this situation is presented as inevitable. The mainstream media, owned by billionaires, repeat it endlessly: “There is no choice,” “Demographics demand it,” “Competitiveness demands it.” But who decided that competitiveness should come before human dignity? Was it you? Or is it a system that goes to great lengths to make us believe it’s unavoidable?

Conclusion: Choose your future

This story of Filipino-controlled robots isn’t just a technological curiosity. It’s a major warning signal reminding us that progress without social justice is just a form of barbarism. But we have a choice. We can continue to consume without asking questions, letting billionaires write the rules. Or we can demand better by boycotting companies that exploit human beings. Better yet, we can support social movements and vigorously demand a redistribution of wealth. Because in the end, if the future is going to resemble what we see today but a thousand times worse, then there’s really something to fear.

What do you think? Do you still believe that technology used solely to maximize profits represents a form of progress? Share your opinion in the comments below. If you found this article valuable, please take 20 seconds to support the site by buying us a coffee on Buy Me a Coffee. Also, please take a few more seconds to share this analysis with others. In the meantime, see you soon for new adventures.