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Post-work society

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In futurology, political science, and science fiction, a post-work society is a society in which the nature of work has been radically transformed and traditional employment has largely become obsolete due to technological progress.[1]

Some post-work theorists imagine the complete automation of all jobs, or at least the takeover of all monotonous, rule-based, predictable and repetitive (and thus unworthy of humans) tasks in the future by ultimately cheaper, faster, more efficient, more reliable and more accurate intelligent machines.[2][3] Additionally, these machines can work in harsher conditions and for longer periods of time without stopping than humans,[4] which is expected to eventually lead to massive economic growth, despite high rates of ever-increasing human unemployment.[5] Overall, this development would lead to an enormous increase in prosperity, whereby it would be the task of politics to distribute this wealth evenly within the population.[6][7]

Other theories of a post-work society focus more on challenging the priority of the work ethic, and on the celebration of nonwork activities.[8]

Near-term practical proposals closely associated with post-work theory include the implementation of a universal basic income,[9] as well as the reduction of the length of a working day and the number of days of a working week. Increased focus on what post-work society would look like has been driven by reports such as one that states 47% of jobs in the United States could be automated.[10] Because of increasing automation and the low price of maintaining an automated workforce compared to one dependent on human labor, it has been suggested that post-work societies would also be ones of post-scarcity.[11][12]

Literature

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  • Daniel Susskind: WORLD WITHOUT WORK: Technology, Automation, and How We Should Respond, 2020, ISBN 9781250173515

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Frayne, David. "Towards a Post-Work Society". No. 2. ROAR Magazine.
  2. ^ Lynskey, Dorian (2020-01-09). "A World Without Work by Daniel Susskind review – should we be delighted or terrified?". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2023-04-05.
  3. ^ Ox, Audit (2023-07-27). "Chat GPT Creator Sam Altman Says Jobs Will Go Away Because of AI, It Will Not Just Be a Supplement…". Medium. Retrieved 2024-03-20.
  4. ^ Beckett, Andy (19 January 2018). "Post-work: the radical idea of a world without jobs". The Guardian. Retrieved 2018-09-15.
  5. ^ Lu, Yiwen (2023-06-14). "Generative A.I. Can Add $4.4 Trillion in Value to Global Economy, Study Says". New York Times.
  6. ^ "How AI Could Make Everyone Rich". Lifewire. Retrieved 2024-03-21.
  7. ^ Clifford, Catherine (2021-03-17). "OpenAI's Sam Altman: Artificial Intelligence will generate enough wealth to pay each adult $13,500 a year". CNBC. Retrieved 2024-03-21.
  8. ^ Thompson, Derek (2015-06-23). "A World Without Work". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2022-10-25.
  9. ^ "What Will We All Do in a Post-Work Society?". Treehugger. 2021-02-12. Retrieved 2022-10-23.
  10. ^ Frey, Carl Benedikt; Osborne, Michael (13 April 2018). "Automation and the future of work – understanding the numbers". Oxford Martin School. Retrieved 2 May 2019.
  11. ^ Wolla, Scott A. (1 January 2018). "Will Robots Take Our Jobs?". Economic Research - St. Louis Fed. Retrieved 2 May 2019.
  12. ^ "Traditional employment is becoming obsolete". www.futuretimeline.net. Retrieved 2021-08-27.