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A world without work : technology, automation, and how we should respond / Daniel Susskind.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York, NY : Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt and Company, 2020Copyright date: ©2020Edition: First editionDescription: x, 305 pages : illustrations ; 25 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9781250173515
  • 1250173515
Subject(s):
Contents:
A History of Misplaced Anxiety -- The Age of Labour -- The Pragmatist Revolution -- Underestimating Machines -- Task Encroachment -- Frictional Technological Unemployment -- Structural Technological Unemployment -- Technology and Inequality -- The Response -- Education and Its Limits -- The Big State -- Big Tech -- Meaning and Purpose.
Summary: "A down-and-out so-and-so gets more than he bargained for when a wave of automation sweeps him and his kind out to an oil-black, petroleum-stink sea of indolent excess and the promise of A WORLD WITHOUT WORK"-- Provided by publisher.
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 331.25 S964 Available 33111009583911
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

SHORTLISTED FOR THE FINANCIAL TIMES & MCKINSEY 2020 BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR
One of Fortune Best Books of the Year
One of Inc. Best Business Books of the Year
One of The Times (UK) Best Business Books of the Year
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice

From an Oxford economist, a visionary account of how technology will transform the world of work, and what we should do about it

From 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.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

A History of Misplaced Anxiety -- The Age of Labour -- The Pragmatist Revolution -- Underestimating Machines -- Task Encroachment -- Frictional Technological Unemployment -- Structural Technological Unemployment -- Technology and Inequality -- The Response -- Education and Its Limits -- The Big State -- Big Tech -- Meaning and Purpose.

"A down-and-out so-and-so gets more than he bargained for when a wave of automation sweeps him and his kind out to an oil-black, petroleum-stink sea of indolent excess and the promise of A WORLD WITHOUT WORK"-- Provided by publisher.

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