Automation in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Automation in the Age of Artificial Intelligence draws on historical and contemporary debates to examine the future of work in the age of artificial intelligence.

While automation is often portrayed as an inevitable technological force driving economic progress or job loss, the book reframes it as a socially constructed discourse that is shaped by competing beliefs, interests, and narratives about human labor, progress, and value. It situates current anxieties about AI within a longer trajectory of industrial transformation by identifying four distinct ways of understanding automation: the activist, resigned, status quo, and futurist discourses. By analysing how these discourses emerge in policy debates, media coverage, and academic research, the book reveals how language and ideology influence the adoption and governance of new technologies.

This book offers conceptual framework for scholars in sociology, political economy, and science and technology studies, as well as for policymakers and labor advocates seeking to navigate automation’s social impacts. In doing so, it moves beyond deterministic narratives of job loss to uncover the deeper cultural meanings attached to technological change and the uncertain future of work.