Abstract
In 1930, in a much-quoted essay the economist John Keynes predicted the arrival, in the not so distant future of a 15-h working week in “progressive countries” with access to advanced technological developments (Keynes 1930). In essence, the machines would do most of the work leaving mankind to reap the fruits of their labour, with hitherto unknown standards of living and leisure time, which would have been enjoyed in the past only by the very wealthy or by the nobility.
When, at last, there is an effective guarantee of the two elements physical safety and adequate employment, then at last we shall be free from the threat of the robot machine. We can then welcome the robot machine as our deliverer from the long hard chores of many centuries.
—Edmund Berkeley (1949), Giant Brains or Machines that Think, Wiley & Sons.
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Eaton, M. (2020). Jobs and Education. In: Computers, People, and Thought. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55300-5_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55300-5_10
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