We Are Not Machines
The Fight for the Future of Work
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- $229.00
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- $229.00
Descripción editorial
'Sarah is one of the few people who really understands how AI is changing the character of work already and what it means for all of us' David Runciman
'Original and enlightening... Not many books about the labour market make you laugh and bring tears to your eyes' Emma Duncan, The Times
From award-winning Financial Times journalist Sarah O’Connor, a deeply reported investigation into how AI is transforming our working lives in unpredictable ways
A tsunami of change, we are told, is sweeping the economy, as robots and AI threaten to take over tasks done by humans. But while we worry that we’re robotizing our work, what if the bigger risk is that we’re robotizing ourselves?
When prize-winning Financial Times journalist Sarah O’Connor set out to investigate what was happening on the ground, she met people who weren’t necessarily losing their jobs to machines, but who felt they were losing something, nonetheless. Because the quantity of work is not the only thing at stake in times of rapid technological change. So is its quality.
From TV subtitle translators reduced to editing AI output to warehouse workers surrounded by robots and graduates interviewed by machines, O’Connor found stories of work becoming more intense, more lonely, less creative, less human.
But she also investigated hopeful instances of work being made better, safer and more enjoyable – stories in which people have been able to make the machines work for them, rather than the other way around.
Her reporting shows that the way our tools change our work - and ourselves - is shaped by power, design, culture, institutions and ideas. As a result, the outcome is not pre-determined but must be contested by us all.
Inspired by stories from nineteenth-century English cotton mills to twenty-first century Swedish mines, We Are Not Machines reveals how we can fight for work which is more respectful of our limits, and more worthy of our minds.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this levelheaded debut exploration of the AI revolution in the workplace, Financial Times reporter O'Connor finds that the challenge facing humans is "the same as ever: to harness the power of our new machines without losing something of our minds, our bodies, and our souls along the way." A "techno-optimist" before she spent a decade reporting on the labor market, O'Connor asserts that early assurances AI would reduce tedious, mindless work and leave humans more time for fulfilling creative endeavors have not played out as expected. Interviewing laborers around the globe, she shows that AI is instead increasing the mindlessness and repetition of work-related tasks; that AI's ability to protect people working dangerous jobs, such as miners or truck drivers, are offset by increases in surveillance and expectations of higher productivity; and that AI is rapidly reshaping numerous fields without any meaningful oversight, including higher education, human resources, therapy, and social work. O'Connor finds hope in examples of workers building meaningful guardrails for AI in their industries, from the Writers Guild of America to Dutch nurses. Concluding that the "real danger is not that we successfully make machines in our image, but that we silently remake ourselves in theirs," O'Connor nonetheless maintains optimism that the "future of work can be... worthy of the human mind." It's a balanced and forward-thinking take on AI.
