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A World Without Work: Technology, Automation, and How We Should Respond
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About This Book
From an Oxford economist, a visionary account of how technology will transform the world of work, and what we should do about itFrom mechanical looms to the combustion engine to the first computers, new technologies have always provoked panic about workers being replaced by machines. For centuries, such fears have been misplaced, and many economists maintain that they remain so today. But as Daniel Susskind demonstrates, this time really is different. Breakthroughs in artificial intelligence mean that all kinds of jobs are increasingly at risk.Drawing on almost a decade of research in the field, Susskind argues that machines no longer need to think like us in order to outperform us, as was once widely believed. As a result, more and more tasks that used to be far beyond the capability of computers – from diagnosing illnesses to drafting legal contracts, from writing news reports to composing music – are coming within their reach. The threat of technological unemployment is now real.This is not necessarily a bad thing, Susskind emphasizes. Technological progress could bring about unprecedented prosperity, solving one of humanity's oldest problems: how to make sure that everyone has enough to live on. The challenges will be to distribute this prosperity fairly, to constrain the burgeoning power of Big Tech, and to provide meaning in a world where work is no longer the center of our lives. Perceptive, pragmatic, and ultimately hopeful, A World Without Work shows the way.
Reviews
"The author diligently explains the history of these replacement technologies, the patterns they followed, and why their impacts on the giants of industry should be taken seriously ..."
"When he turns to technology itself, Susskind is more willing to dig in to tougher arguments ..."
"Susskind strong evidence that the progress of artificial intelligence (AI) will eventually result in markedly less work, and jobs, for people, and makes a compelling case that there are few jobs that cannot eventually be performed using AI ..."
"Susskind's book is so timely, to miss it might be downright irresponsible."
"This dense but lively investigation is not for the reader who wants an easy dinner-party answer, but the curious worrier or the skeptic who wants to understand the theory behind the machines will want to take a look."
"While other writers make a strongly socialist, feminist or environmentalist case for a post-work world, he says simply that the jobs will go and we'll have to make the best of it."
"Not all technologists or economists agree that AI will be nearly as disruptive to human labour as Susskind posits ..."
"Without some sort of intervention, he says, the inequality inherent in today's economy will metastasize into an even greater divide between the haves and have-nots."
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