A World Without Work
Technology, Automation, and How We Should Respond
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A World Without Work: A Visionary Account of How AI Will Transform the World of Work
From mechanical looms to computers, new technologies have always provoked panic about workers being replaced by machines. For centuries, such fears have been misplaced, but as Daniel Susskind demonstrates in A World Without Work, this time is different. Breakthroughs in artificial intelligence mean that all kinds of jobs are increasingly at risk.
Drawing on almost a decade of research, Susskind argues that machines no longer need to think like us to outperform us. As a result, more and more tasks that used to be 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 ensure everyone has enough to live on. The challenges will be to distribute this prosperity fairly, constrain the burgeoning power of Big Tech, and 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 forward in the age of AI and automation.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A thorough and sobering look at automation and the depreciation of human labor arrives from Oxford economics fellow Susskind (The Future of the Professions, coauthor). It turns on an important question: will there be enough work to employ people throughout the 21st century? Sorry but no, Susskind concludes; machines can't do everything, but they can do much more than they're doing currently, and will inevitably displace many more workers. He isn't in despair, however, as he has some possible remedies in mind. Before dispensing them, he briskly covers the rise of artificial intelligence, the social problems raised by economic inequality, and the efficacy of education for protecting economically insecure workers, which he finds more limited than optimists would have people think. Susskind then posits what he believes are more effective long-term responses, including increased government intervention into the free market, targeted tax incentives for employers, and strengthened regulation aimed at changing the behavior of big technology companies. 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.
