The DOI matches its Crossref record; 2 of the 2 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Fear and hope in an age of mass automation: debating the future of work
Abstract
Alternative perspectives from economics and political economy now agree that work is set to disappear through the impact of mass automation. Some worry about the negative effects on unemployment and inequality, while others see the opportunity to extend free time. This paper confronts and criticises these perspectives. It addresses previous visions of an automated (‘workless’) future presented by Marx and Keynes and shows the enduring barriers to working less in capitalist society. It then questions whether work will be reduced by technological progress; rather, it argues that work will likely persist, despite and indeed because of the wider use of new technology. The threat to workers from technology is seen to come more from the erosion in the quality of work than from the loss of work. The paper argues that a better future for work and workers ultimately depends on broader changes in ownership.
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“papers adopting a critical approach to the development and implementation of AI, and its implications for work and employment that build on existing work published in NTWE (e.g., Spencer 2018; Upchurch 2018; Lloyd and Payne 2019;Howcroft and Taylor 2023) are not yet commonplace.”
From Reflecting on 40 Years of New Technology, Work and Employment: Insights From the Current Editors on the Past and Prospects for the Future (2026) · cites this paper as Spencer 2018
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Cites
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The Problem with Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries
Weeks, K. (2011) · doi:10.1215/9780822394723 · Cited by 1,166
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Cited by
Bankins, S., Ocampo, A. C., Marrone, M., Restubog, S. L. D., & Woo, S. E. (2024) · Journal of Organizational Behavior · doi:10.1002/job.2735 · Cited by 799
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
“A number of authors consider AI specifically as a form of capitalistic innovation, and show that the logic of capitalism dictates that work is a long way from becoming obsolete (Spencer 2018).”
The Potential Implications of Autonomous Vehicles in and around the Workplace
Pettigrew, S., Fritschi, L., & Norman, R. (2018) · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · doi:10.3390/ijerph15091876 · Cited by 103
The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Expertise Development: Implications for HRD
Ardichvili, A. (2022) · Advances in Developing Human Resources · doi:10.1177/15234223221077304 · Cited by 77
Adopting AI in the Context of Knowledge Work: Empirical Insights from German Organizations
von Richthofen, G., Ogolla, S., & Send, H. (2022) · Information · doi:10.3390/info13040199 · Cited by 33
Metadata
- Authors
- Spencer, D. A.
- ORCID
- Spencer, David A.
- Venue
- New Technology, Work and Employment
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2018-02-22
- Volume
- 33
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 1-12
- ISSN
- 0268-1072
- 1468-005X
- Cited by
- 192
- References
- 2
- Language
- en
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Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
