The fight for the future of work — a deeply reported investigation into what AI is actually doing to our working lives, from the award-winning Financial Times columnist.
A tsunami of change, we are told, is sweeping the economy as robots and AI threaten to take over human work. But while we worry about robotising our jobs, what if the bigger risk is that we're robotising ourselves?
When Sarah O'Connor set out to see what was happening on the front lines, she met people who weren't losing their jobs to machines — but who felt they were losing something else. Translators forced to edit AI output. Graduates interviewed by software. Warehouse workers surrounded by robots, miners in Sweden, care workers in the Netherlands, drivers in America: work becoming lonelier, less creative, less human. Her conclusion is bracing: the real danger is not that we make machines in our image, but that we silently remake ourselves in theirs — and her call to arms is that a better future of work is possible, “but not without a fight.”
Praise
“A fierce, wise, beautiful book.” — Tim Harford
“Out of those stories she creates a remarkable picture of what is happening to jobs.” — Emma Duncan, The Times
“A must-read for educators, policy makers, executives, and employees.” — Gillian Tett
About the author
Sarah O'Connor is a columnist and associate editor at the Financial Times, winner of the Orwell Prize for Exposing Britain's Social Evils.
