It presents a broad, sweeping overview of the issues at hand for the modern laborer in the increasingly automated economy.
Rise of the Robots is laudable as a trade book about emerging technologies. How do we address the coming impacts of technological change? The book’s second half examines the intersection of developing technology and social problems. Instead, history is not Ford’s focus and while the past is mined for counter-arguments to be anticipated, Ford’s thesis is that the situation is indeed different this time, and far more dire in terms of the ultimate fate of human labor.
In this capacity, Ford’s book carries echoes of the arguments of many intellectual forebears who have studied manufacturing technology and factory automation – Hugh Aitken, Norbert Wiener, John Diebold, David Noble, David Nye – though few of these are referenced in his text. For much of recent history, our optimism has been borne out, with increased prospects, prosperity, and job opportunities – if not necessarily more fulfilling ones – for the more highly educated.īut this time, could it be different? Does information technology represent a new face on the same old problem? Or do its unique affordances change the situation in a fundamental way, for which history provides neither models nor solutions? This is the question that Martin Ford’s Rise of the Robots seeks to explore in its first half. We owe our standard of living – from affordable goods to accessible public utilities – to the productive potential of machinery a combination of education, job-retraining, and social services have served to address the plights of those displaced. While we may mourn the loss of handicrafts, few would choose to do away with the fruits of the multiplicative forces of mechanization and automation. This process has had its casualties, but is generally acknowledged to be the source of long-term economic prosperity. Machines and mechanization have a long history of displacing human workers by eliminating the need for certain types of human labor.
Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future.
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