A world without work : technology, automation, and how we should respond / Daniel Susskind.

Part one The context. A history of misplaced anxiety --
The age of labor --
The pragmatist revolution --
Underestimating machines --
Part two. The threat. Task encroachment --
Frictional technological unemployment --
Structural technological unemployment --
Technology and inequality --
Part three. The response. Education and its limits --
The big state --
Big tech --
Meaning and purpose.

From an Oxford economist, an account of how technology will transform the world of work, and what we should do about it. Drawing on almost a decade of research in the field, Susskind argues that machines no longer need to think like us in order to outperform us, as was once widely believed. As a result, more and more tasks that used to be far beyond the capability of computers - from diagnosing illnesses to drafting legal contracts, from writing news reports to composing music - are coming within their reach. The threat of technological unemployment is now real. This is not necessarily a bad thing, Susskind emphasizes. Technological progress could bring about unprecedented prosperity, solving one of humanity's oldest problems: how to make sure that everyone has enough to live on. The challenges will be to distribute this prosperity fairly, to constrain the burgeoning power of Big Tech, and to provide meaning in a world where work is no longer the center of our lives. --From publisher description.