Waged Slaves: Will The Robots Deliver Us Our Freedom?

Thoughts on the future of work, dictatorial workplaces, AI technology, women bosses, and meaning and purpose in life and work in the Artificial Intelligence age

Technology has advanced exponentially in recent years to the point where we find ourselves on the brink of widespread automation and mechanisation of work. Intelligent machines are already here, and some suggest that by 2035, artificial intelligence and machine technology will carry out many of our traditional working roles in a broad spectrum of industries. We may finally realise Keynes’ 1931 promise when he said, “For the first time since his creation, man will be faced with his real, his permanent problem — how to use his freedom from pressing economic cares, how to occupy the leisure, which science and compound interest will have won for him, to live wisely and agreeably and well.”1 Maybe Keynes was right, but it looks like the wealth he predicted has been funnelled into the pockets of the capitalists rather than realised as leisure time for the masses.

Artificial Intelligence is changing everything, and according to a 2013 report by the Oxford Martin School in the UK, 47 per cent of all US jobs, mainly in retail and services, will be automated2. It has been…