Are we ready to ponder COVID's contradictions and conundrums?

Monday marked the official end to "working from home" at our Beijing office, and I thought it brought glad tidings, in the sense that it was good to see many colleagues again in flesh and blood, hearty and hospitable－the COVID-19 survivors. May the Force be with all of us!

More than six months of bad news (punctuated by good news) have sped by since the virus began to run amok in the last week of January.

More good news is welcome. Some of the Beijing cinemas re-opened last Friday. I am yet to re-visit them－who knows, when I do, I might have a story to report. Going by media reports, there are strict measures in place to ensure film-goers don't end up contracting or spreading the infection.

Talking of which, scientists have been warning that several "waves "of the pandemic can't be ruled out. Researchers have already predicted that come winter, the virus will likely be back, perhaps in a resurgent or more virulent manner.

Will "working from home" return with a vengeance? Let me rephrase that question. Is "working from home" undesirable or terrible?

My colleague Pan Mengqi wrote a fascinating log in Tuesday's China Daily that working from home helped many people "achieve more than usual". Pan herself utilized the COVID period to overcome a perceived shortcoming (poor math ability).

That disruption to our "normal "activities could have a silver lining sounds counter-intuitive－it seems to contradict a widespread notion that COVID is bad A-Z. Is it? I wonder (at the risk of appearing insensitive).

In fact, my mind is weighing the apparent contradictions that COVID has unleashed in recent months.

The pandemic has accelerated the evolution of certain tech fields like artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing. AI is at the heart of robotics or automation. Autonomous driving, or self-driving vehicles, is said to be the next big revolution in transportation and logistics.

Now, COVID has shown that logistics－supply chains, couriers, deliverymen, freight, cargo－are essential for economies and mankind's survival. Lots of functions in logistics are being automated. Even deliveries by drone is not an uncommon prediction for the near future. Could deliverymen in automated vehicles be the next likely step?

Would that be bad? I don't know. I have noticed human beings "driving" two-, three-and four-wheelers at brisk speeds on main roads with their eyes glued to smartphone screens! This is particularly true of a courier in a rush.

One nanosecond of error is all that separates life and death－that's how my mind awfulizes the situation every time I see irresponsible zombie drivers in action.

Can autonomous vehicles make the lives of deliverymen and other logistics personnel less stressful? COVID has shown we need them now more than ever. But then, wouldn't reckless automation and robotics eventually make various jobs and humans redundant?

Worldwide, governments and central banks are desperately trying to keep their economies afloat, somehow duck a recession and skirt a downward spiral. Emphasis is on consumption upgrade. But what about human upgrade?

If a deliveryman's mind could be freed up, de-stressed, through a self-driving vehicle, so he can ensure the safety of himself and others on the roads, should his freed-up mental bandwidth be used to increase his productivity or output－say, 40 deliveries/hour instead of 10?

Or, should a technology-heavy society encourage him to upgrade himself, so he could contribute higher or better value than deliveries to society, when automation eventually does make his current job redundant?

COVID has dredged up lots of confusions, contradictions and conundrums indeed.