Will Robotic Trucks Be "Sweatshops on Wheels"? – IAM Network

A version of this article originally appeared in Issues in Science and Technology. When Americans talk about automation, they tend to ask first how many jobs are at risk--or more broadly, how many jobs will there be, who will do them, and where will they be located. These are the wrong questions. They suggest a policy discussion that starts at the end, focused on mitigating negative impacts. This approach perpetuates a flawed view of how technology develops--one that plagues contemporary debates about the future of work--because it presents technological progress as a process of scientists and engineers applying knowledge and technique to the material world to find a single best way to perform some task.In short, this view of automation sees the consequences of technology for workers (job loss, lower wages, need for retraining, and the like) as largely inevitable.