In 350 BCE, Aristotle stated, “ the shuttle would weave and the plectrum touch the lyre without a hand to guide them, chief workmen would not want servants, nor masters slaves.” In short, if humans were sophisticated enough to build machines to outpace human efforts, slavery and the work therein, would become obsolete.įast forward to the Industrial Revolution in England where technophobia surrounding the very weaving innovations Aristotle had prophesied reached a breaking point. Much like the innovations that led to dying professions, the philosophy surrounding technological unemployment has been centuries in the making. Before self-driving cars, delivery drones and robotic assembly lines, there was the invention of the railroad, the telephone, the electric street light and before that, the invention of the wheel - all of which caused mass disruption in the labor force. Technological unemployment, or job loss due to advancements in technology innovation and automation, is nothing new, just ask the lamplighter. So, do we resist innovation and progress only to picket outside of Skynet’s world headquarters? Or should we simply welcome our new robot overlords and hope we remain on the payroll? For many, that answer does not compute. A recent McKinsey report analyzed 800 occupations in 46 countries and estimated that between 400 million and 800 million jobs could be lost due to robotic automation by the year 2030.
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