Automation Is a Myth - Luke Munn

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Résumé :
For some automation will usher in a labor-free utopia; for others it signals a disastrous age-to-come. Yet whether seen as dream or nightmare, automation, argues Munn, is ultimately a fable that rests on a set of triple fictions. There is the myth of full autonomy claiming that machines will soon take over production and supplant the human. But far from being self-acting, technical solutions are piecemeal; their support and maintenance reveals the immense human labor behind autonomous processes. There is the myth of universal automation with technologies framed as a desituated force sweeping across the globe and remaking society. But this fiction ignores the social, cultural, and geographical forces that shape technologies at a local level. And, there is the myth of automating everyone, the generic figure of the human at the heart of automation claims. But labor is socially stratified and so automation's fallout will be highly uneven, falling heavier on some (immigrants, people of color, women) than others. Munn moves from machine minders in China to warehouse pickers in the United States to explore the messy ways that new technologies do (and don't) reconfigure labor. Combining this rich array of human stories with insights from media, race, and cultural studies, Munn points to a more nuanced, localized, and racialized understanding of the future of work.--

Biographie:
Luke Munn is a researcher based in Aotearoa New Zealand exploring the social, political, and environmental impacts of digital cultures.

Sommaire:
Introduction: Automation Is a Myth
1. The Fantasy of Full Automation
2. Spotty Automation and Less-Than-Human Workers
3. Technology in Context, Technology as Culture
4. Automation on the Ground
5. Automation's Racialized Fallout
6. Automation's Gendered Inequality
Conclusion: Automation Is Not Our Future