Automation Anxiety

Ever since modern economic growth began three centuries ago, people have suffered from periodic bursts of anxiety about the technologies of the time taking on the work that they do. This opening lecture explores the history of ‘automation anxiety’ – from the Luddites who smashed framing machines at the start of the Industrial Revolution in Britain to the protestors who set driverless cars on fire on the streets of San Francisco today. Time and again, their main worry – that there would not be enough work for people to do – turned out to be wrong. But they did have legitimate grievances as well.