Still Think Robots Can’t Do Your Job? Essays on Automation and Technological Unemployment

177 Pages·2018·4.284 MB·English

by  Riccardo Campa

Riccardo Campa

STILL THINK ROBOTS
CAN’T DO YOUR JOB?

ESSAYS ON AUTOMATION AND
TECHNOLOGICAL UNEMPLOYMENT

Libreria di Neoantropologia

A series edited by Riccardo Campa

Scientific Committee

Antonio Camorrino, Federico II University in Neaples
Vitaldo Conte – Academy of Fine Arts in Rome
Michel Kowalewicz – Jagiellonian University in Krakow
Roberto Manzocco – City University of New York
Luciano Pellicani – Guido Carli Free International University
for Social Studies in Rome
Salvatore Rampone – University of Sannio in Benevento
Stefan Lorenz Sorgner – John Cabot University in Rome
Daniele Stasi – University of Rzeszów
Piotr Zielonka – Kozminski University in Warsaw

Campa, Riccardo – Still Think Robots Can’t Do Your Job?
Essays on Automation and Technological Unemployment

ISBN: 9788894830200

Copyright D Editore © 2018. All right reserved.”

D Editore, Rome
Contacts: [phone]
www.deditore.com
[email protected]

This ebook is made with StreetLib Write editor
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Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1. Technological Unemployment:
A Brief History of an Idea

Chapter 2. Automation, Education, Unemployment:
A Scenario Analysis

Chapter 3. The Rise of Social Robots:
A Review of the Recent Literature

Chapter 4. Technological Growth and Unemployment:
A Global Scenario Analysis

Chapter 5. Workers and Automata:
A Sociological Analysis of the Italian Case

Chapter 6. Pure Science and the Posthuman Future

Chapter 7. Making Science by Serendipity:
A review of Robert K. Merton and Elinor Bar-
ber’s The Travels and Adventures of Serendipity

Bibliography

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The first industrial revolution ex-
tended the reach of our bodies, and
the second is extending the reach
of our minds. As I mentioned, em-
ployment in factories and farms
has gone from 60 percent to 6 per-
cent in the United States in the past
century. Over the next couple of
decades, virtually all routine phys-
ical and mental work will be auto-
mated.

Ray Kurzweil

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Preface

This is one of those books that one writes hoping to be
wrong. The question with which I begin the book has recently
been asked quite often. I ask it also to myself: Do I still think
robots cannot do my job? My personal answer is simply “no”.
Sooner or later, there will be robots that can teach and do sci-
ence.
In spite of the fact that this is a collection of academic works,
I ask my readers to allow me the indulgence of introducing the
topic by offering a personal story.
I have always been fascinated by technologies, old and new,
and especially by Artificial Intelligence and robotics. Not by
chance, therefore, before turning into a social scientist I studied
electronics. Still, I could never turn my back to the unwanted
collateral effects of technological development.
When I was a teenager, I worked in a factory in summertime
as a manual worker in order to pay for my studies. It was the
1980s, when the first wave of robotization was hitting Italian
industries. I remember that every week a new machine was
“hired” by my company, and a few fellow workers fired. Being
seasonal workers we were not protected by long term contracts.
One day a computerized scale was introduced in my depart-
ment. It was pretty obvious that it was there to do the job of my
own team. I was at once fascinated and scared by that machine.
On the one hand I was curious to see how it worked, on the oth-
er I knew it might lead to my firing. When the meal break start-
ed, by getting close to the machinery, I heard the boss saying
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that the hiring manager was looking but they had not yet found a
worker who could supervise its functioning. So instead of join-
ing my colleagues at the canteen, I started reading the instruc-
tion manual.
When the bell rang to signal the end of the meal break, I went
to the boss and told him that I was a student of electronics and I
knew how the scale worked. He was quite happy to have the
machinery immediately in function, and I was happy to leave the
physical work and turn into a supervisor. Even though I had to
wait until late that evening to eat, I did not even feel hungry. I
was proud of myself, and I thought my parents would be proud
of me also, if they just could see me. I was just sixteen years old
and it was only a modest seasonal job, but to me that “career ad-
vancement” meant a lot.
Still, what I predicted would happen, happened. My friends
and colleagues were fired. I knew it was not their “fault”. Even
if all of them did what I did—give up eating and study the in-
struction manual—only one supervisor was needed. The ma-
chine would have done the rest. I also know that some of those
friends did not find a new job for long time.
This happened almost thirty-five years ago. It was my first
experience with technological unemployment. By resorting to
sociological jargon, I can say that my first knowledge in the so-
ciology of work came from “participant observation.”
This probably explains why, once I became a professional
sociologist, I focused so much on technology and future of
work. I wrote much on these topics in both Italian and English.
In this volume I present several of my works written in the Eng-
lish language. As often happens in a collection of essays pub-
lished at different times, a few concepts and quotes are repeated.
However, I wanted to leave the writings in their original form,
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as they were published by scientific journals. Here is a short de-
scription of the chapters.
The first chapter traces a brief history of the concept of tech-
nological unemployment. The historical narration covers four
centuries, since the beginning of the industrial revolution up to
the present. As a consequence, it is highly selective, mainly
based on sources in the English language and referring to only a
few of the many social scientists involved in the debate. The
scopes of the inquiry are essentially two. The first is to show
that focusing on technological unemployment as an idea – and
not simply as a phenomenon – is appropriate, because of the
high level of controversy that still characterizing the debate. The
second is to provide an understanding of critical societal chang-
es occurring in the twenty-first century.
The second chapter proposes a short-term scenario analysis
concerning the possible relations between automation, educa-
tion, and unemployment. In my view, the scenario analysis elab-
orated by the McKinsey Global Institute in 2013 underestimates
the problem of technological unemployment and proposes an
education model which is inadequate for handling the challenges
of twenty-first century disruptive technologies. New technologi-
cal advances – such as the automation of knowledge work – will
also affect the jobs of highly educated workers. Therefore, poli-
cy makers will not avert massive unemployment only by extend-
ing the study of math, science, and engineering. A better solu-
tion could be the establishment of a universal basic income, and
the elaboration of an education model capable of stimulating
creativity and the sense of belonging to a community.
In the third chapter I explore the most recent literature on so-
cial robotics and argue that the field of robotics is evolving in a
direction that will soon require a systematic collaboration be-
tween engineers and sociologists. After discussing several prob-
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