Automation: is it really different this time?
Open accessAbstract
This review examines several recent books that deal with the impact of automation and robotics on the future of jobs. Most books in this genre predict that the current phase of digital technology will create massive job loss in an unprecedented way, that is, that this wave of automation is different from previous waves. Uniquely digital technology is said to automate professional occupations for the first time. This review critically examines these claims, puncturing some of the hyperbole about automation, robotics and Artificial Intelligence. The review argues for a more nuanced analysis of the politics of technology and provides some critical distance on Silicon Valley's futurist discourse. Only by insisting that futures are always social can public bodies, rather than autonomous markets and endogenous technologies, become central to disentangling, debating and delivering those futures.
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Workers' labor disappears from corporate imaginaries of progress, maintaining the mythology of AI as a technological achievement.
“While the data work industry is rapidly growing and becoming increasingly structured and professionalized, workers’ labor disappears from corporate imaginaries of progress [21, 41, 55, 137], which serves to maintain the mythology of AI as a technological achievement [11, 68, 99].”
From 'The plan is just survival': Data Work in Kenya and the Regime of Entrapment (2026) · cites this paper as [137]
Even within institutions, STEM departments often receive priority funding, exacerbating inequalities across disciplines.
“Even within institutions, STEM departments often receive priority funding, exacerbating inequalities across disciplines (Wajcman, 2017).”
From From avoidance to adoption: strategies for integrating AI in higher education contexts (2026) · cites this paper as Wajcman, 2017
The passages on unequal work and income and on the influence of Silicon Valley engineers do not address funding within academic institutions. Searches for STEM funding priorities and departmental funding allocation found no passage about inequalities across disciplines in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.75)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredUber's global driver terms and conditions state that automated firings can take place but then add that in the EU a right to object to a human is available.
“Uber's global driver terms and conditions state that automated firings can take place but then add that in the EU a right to object to a human is available [51].”
From What does it mean to 'solve' the problem of discrimination in hiring?: social, technical and legal perspectives from the UK on automated hiring systems (2020) · cites this paper as [51]
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Cites
(2006) · Cited by 2,256 · see citing works
Jasanoff, S., & Kim, S.-H. (2015) · University of Chicago Press eBooks · doi:10.7208/chicago/9780226276663.001.0001 · Cited by 2,055 · see citing works
Difference and Dependence among Digital Workers: The Case of Amazon Mechanical Turk
Irani, L. (2015) · South Atlantic Quarterly · doi:10.1215/00382876-2831665 · Cited by 367 · see citing works
Technology at work: the future of innovation and employment
Frey, C. B., & Osborne, M. A. (2015) · Cited by 117 · see citing works
Anyone can edit, not everyone does: Wikipedia and the gender gap
Ford, H., & Wajcman, J. (2017) · London School of Economics and Political Science Research Online (London School of Economics and Political Science) · doi:10.1177/0306312717692172 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
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Sánchez-Monedero, J., Dencik, L., & Edwards, L. (2020) · Proceedings of the 2020 Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency · doi:10.1145/3351095.3372849 · Cited by 196 · see citing works
Robotics and automation in the city: a research agenda
Macrorie, R., Marvin, S., & While, A. (2021) · Urban Geography · doi:10.1080/02723638.2019.1698868 · Cited by 177 · see citing works
Artificial intelligence and work: a critical review of recent research from the social sciences
Deranty, J.-P., & Corbin, T. (2024) · AI & SOCIETY · doi:10.1007/s00146-022-01496-x · Cited by 118 · see citing works
“It has been validated and explored at length in the philosophy of technology (Feenberg 1991, Feenberg 2002, Feenberg 2012 for instance; Wajcman 2017 from a sociology perspective).”
'The plan is just survival': Data Work in Kenya and the Regime of Entrapment
Kapania, S., Yang, T., Abdelkadir, N. A., Scheuerman, M. K., Miceli, M., Taylor, A. S., & Fox, S. E. (2026) · Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3772318.3791097 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
“While the data work industry is rapidly growing and becoming increasingly structured and professionalized, workers’ labor disappears from corporate imaginaries of progress [21, 41, 55, 137], which serves to maintain the mythology of AI as a technological achievement [11, 68, 99].”
From avoidance to adoption: strategies for integrating AI in higher education contexts
Gerard, J., Hadi, M. U., Natsheh, B. R. R., Singh, M., & Reid, A. (2026) · Frontiers in Education · doi:10.3389/feduc.2026.1869723
- Authors
- Wajcman, J.
- Affiliations
- London School of Economics and Political Science (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Wajcman, Judy
- ORCID
- Wajcman, Judy
- Venue
- The British Journal of Sociology
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2017-02-21
- Volume
- 68
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 119-127
- ISSN
- 0007-1315 (ISSN-L)
- 1468-4446
- OpenAlex
- W2597345357
- Cited by
- 220
- References
- 5
- Citations by year
- 2026: 23 · 2025: 24 · 2024: 38 · 2023: 22 · 2022: 32 · 2021: 22 · 2020: 24 · 2019: 20 · 2018: 13 · 2017: 2
- Type
- book review
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- British Journal of Sociology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- London School of Economics and Political Science Research Online (London School of Economics and Political Science) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Digital Economy and Work Transformation
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Labor market dynamics and wage inequality
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Industrial relations › Legal and Labor Studies
- Keywords
- automation, robotics, artificial intelligence, future of work, job loss, digital technologies, technology and politics, Silicon Valley, Futurism, public policy, social futures
- MeSH terms
- Artificial Intelligence, Automation, Employment, Forecasting, Humans, Occupations, Robotics
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