Automation Anxiety and Augmentation Aspiration: Subtexts of the Future of Work

Abstract

How are gender, class, and race imagined in relation to automation and augmentation in popular books on the future of work? This paper problematises intersectional inequality subtexts in books on the future of work to develop new research directions. The paper shows how automation anxiety is conceptualised as relating to the threat that men might lose their jobs. While working-class men are constructed as unable to reinvent themselves, middle-class men are presented as unable to remain the main provider for a nuclear family. Augmentation aspirations relate to how social and emotional skills are considered as future-proof, but who gets credit for displaying such skills remains uncertain. Creating and working with machines is also considered future-proof, but there are silences around inequality subtexts in relation to data, the designers, and the design of those technologies. The article suggests a research agenda that can be used to understand how inequalities emerge and how they can be diminished in discussions about automation and augmentation in the future of work.