In this article, we address the problem of the potential crisis in people’s life’s meaning due to massive automation-driven technological unemployment. Assuming that the problem of (re)distribution of economic resources to the whole of society in such a scenario will be solved (e.g. through provision of a Universal Basic Income), the question arises concerning the meaning of people’s lives in a world in which almost everyone does not have to (or even could not) work in order to live. (...) Here, we side with many current proposals that paid work is not the only possible source of meaning and hence, that a meaningful life could indeed be led in a post-work society. We especially focus on one of the most developed accounts, Danaher’s Virtual Utopia (Danaher, 2016, 2019, 2022). According to him, living immersed in playful virtual worlds where new, expanded and personalized possibilities of personal and collective experiences and actions, could not only be perfectly meaningful lives, but furthermore, “be the utopia we are looking for” (Danaher, 2019, p. 270). However, our analysis will suggest that although it is a very well thought and carefully articulated position, it suffers from various important problems. Our criticism will be based on an alternative framework to think about life’s meaning and the conditions for leading a good life in general. This alternative is based on the philosophy of buen vivir (“good living”). This notion has its roots in common aspects of various Latin American indigenous cultures regarding a community-centered way of life where humans, society and nature are taken to be deeply interconnected and interdependent, and where the notions of respect, harmony and balance are at the core of this interrelationship (Gudynas, 2011; Acosta, 2008; Beling et al., 2021). Buen vivir has many facets, but we will focus on three: the importance of healthy human communities, the human-nature relationship, and the intrinsic value of nature. Based on these, we argue that the Virtual Utopia is not a good candidate for human’s post-work utopia because i) it unnecessarily augments the environmental damage that is already involved in massive labor automation; ii) it entails an unnecessary and detrimental dependence on technology for human relationships; and iii) increases the severance of the link between humanity and nature. We conclude that the buen vivir approach is a promising candidate for an alternative utopian project, but one that needs further construction. (shrink)

We offer a precautionary account of why business managers should proactively rethink about what kinds of automation firms ought to implement, by exploring two challenges that automation will potentially pose. We engage the current debate concerning whether life without work opportunities will incur a meaning crisis, offering an argument in favor of the position that if technological unemployment occurs, the machine age may be a structurally limited condition for many without work opportunities to have or add meaning to (...) their lives. We term this the axiological challenge. This challenge, if it turns out to be persuasive, leads to a second challenge, to which managers should pay special attention: the teleological challenge, a topic especially relevant to the broad literature about corporate purpose and governance. We argue that both the shareholder profit-maximization model and its major alternative, stakeholder theory, are insufficient to address the meaning crisis. Unless rebutted, the two challenges compel business leaders to proactively rethink the purpose of business for future society. Otherwise, businesses will be contributors to a major ethical crisis and societal externality in the coming society. (shrink)

This paper argues that even though massive technological unemployment will likely be one of the results of automation, we will not need to institute mass-scale redistribution of wealth to deal with its consequences. Instead, reasons are given for cautious optimism about the standards of living the newly unemployed workers may expect in the fully-automated future. It is not claimed that these predictions will certainly bear out. Rather, they are no less likely to come to fruition than the predictions (...) of those authors who predict that massive technological unemployment will lead to the suffering of the masses on such a scale that significant redistributive policies will have to be instituted to alleviate it. Additionally, the paper challenges the idea that the existence of a moral obligation to help the victims of massive unemployment justifies the coercive taking of anyone else’s property. (shrink)

In 1930, John Maynard Keynes published a masterpiece that should be a compulsory reading for any educated person, a short essay entitled Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren (Keynes 1930, 1972).All references are from the 1931 online version of Keynes (1930) provided by Project Gutenberg, so pages are left unspecified. I am sure Keynes would have found such free access to information coherent with the philosophy of the essay. It was an attempt to see what life would be like if peace, (...) prosperity and techno-scientific developments were increasingly part of humanity’s future. Of course, things went otherwise. The Great Depression begun in the same year, and World War II soon followed. In the subsequent decades, other disasters, conflicts and crises awaited humanity. The essay became a philosophical exercise that could collect dust in the libraries. Yet the fact that history took such terrible and tragic steps back does not in any way detract from Keynes’ brilliant insights. And to. (shrink)

Technological unemployment is a situation when people are without work and seeking work because of innovative production processes and labor-saving organizational solutions.

Is sex work (specifically, prostitution) vulnerable to technological unemployment? Several authors have argued that it is. They claim that the advent of sophisticated sexual robots will lead to the displacement of human prostitutes, just as, say, the advent of sophisticated manufacturing robots have displaced many traditional forms of factory labour. But are they right? In this article, I critically assess the argument that has been made in favour of this displacement hypothesis. Although I grant the argument a degree (...) of credibility, I argue that the opposing hypothesis -- that prostitution will be resilient to technological unemployment -- is also worth considering. Indeed, I argue that increasing levels of technological unemployment in other fields may well drive more people into the sex work industry. Furthermore, I argue that no matter which hypothesis you prefer -- displacement or resilience -- you can make a good argument for the necessity of a basic income guarantee, either as an obvious way to correct for the precarity of sex work, or as a way to disincentivise those who may be drawn to prostitution. (shrink)

Populations in developed societies are rapidly aging: fertility rates are at all-time lows while life expectancy creeps ever higher. This is triggering a social crisis in which shrinking youth populations are required to pay for the care and retirements of an aging majority. Some people argue that by investing in the right kinds of lifespan extension technology – the kind that extends the healthy and productive phases of life – we can avoid this crisis (thereby securing a ‘longevity dividend’). This (...) chapter argues that this longevity dividend is unlikely to be paid if lifespan extension coincides with rampant technological unemployment. This does not mean that we should not pursue lifespan extension, but it does mean that the argument in its favor needs to rest on other grounds. After articulating these grounds, the chapter proceeds to consider the implications this has for our vision of the extended life, postwork utopia. It argues that this vision may need to be reconceived and suggests that one plausible reconception involves prioritizing the role of games in the well-lived life. (shrink)

This paper discusses the concept of “human disenhancement”, i.e. the worsening of human individual abilities and expectations through technology. The goal is provoking ethical reflection on technological innovation outside the biomedical realm, in particular the substitution of human work with computer-driven automation. According to some widely accepted economic theories, automatization and computerization are responsible for the disappearance of many middle-class jobs. I argue that, if that is the case, a technological innovation can be a cause of “human disenhancement”, (...) globally, and all things considered, even when the local and immediate effect of that technology is to increase the demand of more sophisticated human skills than the ones they substitute. The conclusion is that current innovations in the ICT sector are objectionable from a moral point of view, because they disenhance more people than they enhance. (shrink)

Robotics and artificial intelligence are beginning to fundamentally change the relative profitability and productivity of investments in capital versus human labor; creating technological unemployment at all levels of the workforce; from the North to the developing world. As robotics and expert systems become cheaper and more capable the percentage of the population that can find employment will also fall; stressing economies already trying to curtail "entitlements" and adopt austerity. Two additional technology-driven trends will exacerbate the structural unemployment (...) crisis in the coming decades; desktop manufacturing and anti-aging medicine. Desktop manufacturing threatens to disintermediate the half of all workers involved in translating ideas into products in the hands of consumers; while anti-aging therapies will increase the old age dependency ratio of retirees to tax-paying workers. Policies that are being proposed to protect or create employment will have only a temporary moderating effect on job loss. Over time these policies; which will impose raise costs; lower the quality of goods and services; and lower competitiveness; will become fiscally impossible and lose political support. In order to enjoy the benefits of technological innovation and longer; healthier lives we will need to combine policies that control the pace of replacing paid human labor with a universal basic income guarantee provided through taxation and the public ownership of wealth. The intensifying debate over the reform of "entitlements" will be the strategic opening for a campaign for BIG to replace disability and unemployment insurance; Social Security; and other elements of the welfare state. (shrink)

Suppose we are about to enter an era of increasing technological unemployment. What implications does this have for society? Two distinct ethical/social issues would seem to arise. The first is one of distributive justice: how will the efficiency gains from automated labour be distributed through society? The second is one of personal fulfillment and meaning: if people no longer have to work, what will they do with their lives? In this article, I set aside the first issue and (...) focus on the second. In doing so, I make three arguments. First, I argue that there are good reasons to embrace non-work and that these reasons become more compelling in an era of technological unemployment. Second, I argue that the technological advances that make widespread technological unemployment possible could still threaten or undermine human flourishing and meaning, especially if they do not remain confined to the economic sphere. And third, I argue that this threat could be contained if we adopt an integrative approach to our relationship with technology. In advancing these arguments, I draw on three distinct literatures: the literature on technological unemployment and workplace automation; the antiwork critique—which I argue gives reasons to embrace technological unemployment; and the philosophical debate about the conditions for meaning in life—which I argue gives reasons for concern. (shrink)

Volume 52, Issue 5, May 2020, Page 485-491.

Recently, economic studies on labor market developments have indicated that there is a potential threat of technological mass unemployment. Both smart robotics and information technology may perform a broad range of tasks that today are fulfilled by human labor. This development could lead to vast inequalities. Proponents of an unconditional basic income have, therefore, employed this scenario to argue for their cause. In this chapter, the author argues that, although a basic income might be a valid answer to (...) the challenge of technological unemployment, it fails to account for some ethical problems specific to future expectations of mass unemployment. The author introduces the proposal of an unconditional basic capital and shows how it can address these problems adequately and avoid objections against a basic income. However, the basic capital proposal cannot replace all redistributive social policies. It has to be interpreted as a supplement to either a basic income or more traditional redistributive policies. (shrink)

The paper rehearses arguments for and against the prediction of massive technological unemployment. The main argument in favor is that robots are entering a large number of industries; making more expensive human labor redundant. The main argument against the prediction is that for two hundred years we have seen a massive increase in productivity with no long term structural unemployment caused by automation. The paper attempts to move past this argumentative impasse by asking what humans contribute to (...) the supply side of the economy. Historically; humans have contributed muscle and brains to production but we are now being outcompeted by machinery; in both areas; in many jobs. It is argued that this supports the conjecture that massive unemployment is a likely result. It is also argued that a basic income guarantee is a minimal remedial measure to mitigate the worst effects of technological unemployment. (shrink)

The present article aims to utilize some insights from behavioral and happiness economics to discuss the consequences that the introduction of an unconditional basic income to cope with technological unemployment may hold for well-being. The impact of 21st-century technological progress on employment has only just begun to make itself felt and it will take time to realize its full extent. However, the main innovation is already common knowledge: robots are finding their way into the production process. According (...) to several recent contributions, the phenomenon is radically different from past technological revolutions and could generate high levels of unemployment, calling for innovative redistributive public policies. The present article, building on Keynes’ short essay and referring to some of the principles and models of behavioral and happiness economics, focuses on the best-known of these policies, namely provision of an unconditional basic income. A series of factors – loss aversion and hedonic adaptation, the impossibility of escalating to higher-grade consumption behaviors, social interaction in the form of active and passive envy, loss of self-esteem and social stigma – are all likely to have a negative impact on well-being if an unconditional basic income that remains unchanging over time is implemented. A policy mix combining a rising basic income with other measures is therefore proposed. (shrink)

The scholarship on meaningful work has approached the topic mostly from the perspective of the subjective experience of the individual worker. This has led the literature to under-theorize, if not outright ignore, the cultural and normative dimension of meaningful work. In particular, it has obscured that a person’s ability to find meaning in her life in general, and her work in particular, is typically anchored and dependent on shared institutions and cultural aspirations. Reflecting on the future of work, particularly on (...) the dangers posed by the threat of technological unemployment, helps us recognize this cultural and normative dimension of meaningful work. I argue that a world with few work opportunities is a world devoid of a core structuring ideal around which our society has organized itself and, as such, will strain our ability to make sense of what it means to find life meaningful. To make this case I show that work operates as a central organizing _telos_ around which our contemporary lives gravitate. Work touches everyone and everything, defining the rhythms of our days and weeks and providing a center of gravity around which our lives are structured. Work constitutes a central dimension of human flourishing. Through work we provide for our material needs, develop our skills and virtues, build community, and contribute to the common good. As such, work constitutes a central organizing ideal in contemporary Western societies, a fact has significant normative force and plays an important role in our finding work meaningful. (shrink)

University education is full of promise. Indeed universities have the capacity to create and shape, through staff and students, all kinds of enthralling ‘worlds’ and ‘new possibilities of life’. Yet students are encouraged increasingly to view universities as simply a means to an end, where neoliberal education delivers flexible skills to directly serve a certain type of capitalism. Additionally, the universal challenge of technological unemployment, alongside numerous other social issues, has become educationalised and portrayed in HE policy, as (...) an issue to be solved by universities. The idea that more education can resolve the problem of technological unemployment is a political construction which has largely failed to deliver its promise. In this article, we look at educationalisation in hand with technologisation and we draw on a Critical Discourse Analysis of HE policies, to demonstrate the problems arising from taken for granted visions of neoliberal social development related to education,... (shrink)

Technological unemployment is a very real phenomenon that should be addressed by governments and businesses alike. This paper argues that current approaches to technological unemployment are short-sighted in that they focus predominantly and primarily on current generations. This kind of approach results in harm such as ignoring impending meaning-crises and propagating a potential form of human-quota-driven tokenism in the process of implementing automation in the workplace. Arguably, current generations can (and should) benefit from communal resources insofar (...) as they do not harm the least privileged of future generations. That is the threshold that is set in this paper and this threshold can serve as a guiding principle for leaders when making decisions about whether automation should be implemented, the degree and scope to which automation should be implemented, and the policies regarding the process of the implementation and the regulation of automation in the workplace. An intergenerational justice approach is a novel approach to the problem of technological unemployment and can inform decision-making and policy-setting alike. (shrink)

Klara and the Sun, the latest novel by Nobel-prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro, forces one to reckon with one's own anxieties about the future of emerging technologies and confront deep questions about the nature of dignity, existence, and humanity. The novel also provides one with complex characters and a speculative future through which to live new lives, experience novel worlds, and see through different eyes. At the same time, the novel’s world offers us an uncanny distance from our own, making us (...) prone to pass judgments on the characters’ moral faults that we later come to recognize are also our own. (shrink)

As the world of technology increasingly intersects with humanity, one name stands out as a guide in this complex and ever-changing territory: James Hughes. In this interview, we had the opportunity not only to learn more about the author’s thinking and expertise, but also to explore the perspectives he brings on the technological future.

How should policymakers respond to the risk of technological unemployment that automation brings? First, I develop a procedure for answering this question that consults, rather than usurps, individuals’ own attitudes and ambitions towards that risk. I call this the insurance argument. A distinctive virtue of this view is that it dispenses with the need to appeal to a class of controversial reasons about the value of employment, and so is consistent with the demands of liberal political morality. Second, (...) I appeal to the insurance argument to show that governments ought not simply to provide those who are displaced by machines with unemployment benefits. Instead, it must offer re-training programmes, as well as enact more general macroeconomic policies that create new opportunities for employment. My contribution is important not only because it helps us to resolve a series of urgent policy disputes—disputes that have been discussed extensively by labour market economists and policymakers, but less so by political philosophers—but also because my analysis sheds light on more general philosophical controversies relating to risk. (shrink)

Automation can bring the risk of technological unemployment, as employees are replaced by machines that can carry out the same or similar work at a fraction of the cost. Some believe that the appropriate response is to tax automation. In this paper, I explore the justifiability of view, maintaining that we can embrace automation so long as we compensate those employees whose livelihoods are destroyed by this process by creating new opportunities for employment. My contribution in this paper (...) is important not only because I develop a theoretical framework that we can use to resolve this urgent policy dispute—a dispute that has been discussed extensively by labour economists, tax lawyers, and policymakers, but largely neglected by political philosophers—but also because my analysis sheds lights on a wider range of controversies relating to the moral and political importance of unemployment. (shrink)

In this paper I describe Gandhi’s vision for a way of life that would be an essential part of any sustainable solution to worldwide problems of unemployment, societal breakdown and ecological degradation. Gandhi’s vision included a communitarian lifestyle of simplicity and non-accumulation in which agriculture would be supported by cottage industries using appropriate technologies (e.g., spinning). Assuming obligations to future generations, Gandhi’s proposal highlights the degree to which our First-World lifestyle is morally impermissible. One objection to this criticism of (...) our First-World lifestyles is that we can solve the problem of ecological degradation by exporting only appropriate technologies to the Third World and supplementing our use of consumptive technologies with technological cleanups. This suggestion is not only irresponsible and unjust, but also hopeless, for our resource consumptive standards are already the model for development worldwide. To counteract this destructive model we must begin to recreate, in the First World, sustainable lifestyles that others will want to emulate. Part of this task involves the inner work that has been a casualty of the ideologies of modernity, and Gandhi’s vision is a blueprintfor both the outer and inner work that are essential to recreate a sustainable society. (shrink)

It is widely accepted that global forces of technology and trade have caused a profound shift in labor demand toward the most highly skilled, generating sharply rising earnings inequality in flexible labor markets and persistently high unemployment in rigid labor markets. This article critically assesses the evidence for this “Unified Theory.” It finds little compelling empirical support for either the skill-biased demand-shift explanation for high U.S. earnings inequality or the rigid labor markets explanation for high unemployment in Europe. (...) This assessment challenges the policy orthodoxy of the 1990s that developed economies feature a strict inequality-unemployment trade-off and that policy options are therefore limited to skills enhancement in the United States and labor market deregulation in Europe. It is suggested that the theoretical dominance of the textbook supply/demand model has contributed to the neglect of labor market institutions for U.S. wage outcomes and tight macroeconomic policy for European unemployment. (shrink)

Due to the innovative possibilities of digital technologies, the issue of increasing automation is once again on the agenda – and not only in the industry, but also in other branches and sectors of contemporary societies. Although public and scientific discussions about automation seem to raise relevant questions of the “old” debate, such as the replacement of human labor by introducing new technologies, the authors focus here on the new contextual quality of these questions. The debate should rethink the relationship (...) between technology and work with regard to quantitative and qualitative changes in work. In this article, our example will be the introduction of automation in industry, which has been reflected in the widely recognized study by Frey and Osborne in 2013. They estimated the expected impacts of future computerization on US labor market outcomes as very high, specifically regarding the number of jobs at risk. Surprisingly, this study was the starting point of an intensive international debate on the impact of technologies on the future of work and the role of technological change in working environments. Thus, according to the authors, “old” questions remain important, but they should be reinterpreted for “new” societal demands and expectations of future models of work. (shrink)

This is an examination of the significance of Gandhi's social philosophy for development. It is argued that, when seen in light of Gandhi's social philosophy, the concepts of appropriate technology and basic needs take on new meaning. The Gandhian approach can be identified with theoriginal "basic needs" strategy for international development. Gandhi's approach helps to provide greater equity, or "distributive justice," by promoting technology that is appropriate to "basic needs". Gandhi's social philosophy has been neglected by most development specialists, with (...) only a few exceptions. This analysis attempts to draw out some aspects of M.K. Gandhi's background and his thinking aboutswadeshi andswaraj. Gandhi's ideas, which emerged out of an "Indic" meta-cultural background, are based on an emphasis on equity. Gandhi's syncretic Indic background includes a belief in what Bateson, writing about Bali, Indonesia, has called the "steady state." Development activities should be carried out in a phased manner that does not disturb the beneficial aspects of dynamic equilibrium, but that does promote "positive development." A.T. is particularly useful within the context of a basic needs approach to international development because use of A.T. is probably more likely to lead to equitable growth. The "economic growth" strategy, utilizing "advanced technology" exclusively, has caused unemployment and has not led to effective "trickle down," much less "high mass consumption." In many developing countries the poorest 20% of the population are worse off in 1990 than they were in 1980. By making use of the "advantage of backwardness" and viewing development in terms of long-term impacts, a basic needs approach using A.T. is more likely to lead to a positive impact on third world food systems than a pure "economic growth" strategy. (shrink)

This is an examination of the significance of Gandhi's social philosophy for development. It is argued that, when seen in light of Gandhi's social philosophy, the concepts of appropriate technology and basic needs take on new meaning. The Gandhian approach can be identified with theoriginal "basic needs" strategy for international development. Gandhi's approach helps to provide greater equity, or "distributive justice," by promoting technology that is appropriate to "basic needs". Gandhi's social philosophy has been neglected by most development specialists, with (...) only a few exceptions. This analysis attempts to draw out some aspects of M.K. Gandhi's background and his thinking aboutswadeshi andswaraj. Gandhi's ideas, which emerged out of an "Indic" meta-cultural background, are based on an emphasis on equity. Gandhi's syncretic Indic background includes a belief in what Bateson, writing about Bali, Indonesia, has called the "steady state." Development activities should be carried out in a phased manner that does not disturb the beneficial aspects of dynamic equilibrium, but that does promote "positive development." A.T. is particularly useful within the context of a basic needs approach to international development because use of A.T. is probably more likely to lead to equitable growth. The "economic growth" strategy, utilizing "advanced technology" exclusively, has caused unemployment and has not led to effective "trickle down," much less "high mass consumption." In many developing countries the poorest 20% of the population are worse off in 1990 than they were in 1980. By making use of the "advantage of backwardness" and viewing development in terms of long-term impacts, a basic needs approach using A.T. is more likely to lead to a positive impact on third world food systems than a pure "economic growth" strategy. (shrink)

This article explores what technological unemployment might mean.

Since at least the 1960s, science and technology studies scholars have distinguished between technological and social fixes. The author introduces a new concept for the STS theoretical tool kit—the cultural fix—and illustrates this concept using examples from her own research on pregnancy loss and neonatal intensive care, as well as that of anthropologists Katherine Newman and Sherry Ortner on downward mobility and unemployment in the United States. It is argued that the cultural fix represents a distinctive anthropological contribution (...) to the field. (shrink)

Since at least the 1960s, science and technology studies scholars have distinguished between technological and social fixes. The author introduces a new concept for the STS theoretical tool kit—the cultural fix—and illustrates this concept using examples from her own research on pregnancy loss and neonatal intensive care, as well as that of anthropologists Katherine Newman and Sherry Ortner on downward mobility and unemployment in the United States. It is argued that the cultural fix represents a distinctive anthropological contribution (...) to the field. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Jahrbuch für Wissenschaft und Ethik Jahrgang: 20 Heft: 1 Seiten: 293-302.

Name der Zeitschrift: Jahrbuch für Wissenschaft und Ethik Jahrgang: 20 Heft: 1 Seiten: 237-240.

Technological unemployment is a subset of historically recurring problems related to jobs in general and unemployment in particular, which are now of global importance. The typical difficulties of...

A basic income might be able to correct for the income related losses of unemployment, but what about the meaning/purpose related losses? For better or worse, many people derive meaning and fulfillment from the jobs they do; if their jobs are taken away, they lose this source of meaning. If we are about the enter an era of rampant job loss as a result of advances in technology, is there a danger that it will also be an era of (...) rampant meaninglessness? In this chapter, I offer counsel against any such despair. I argue that we should encourage the withdrawal from the world of work into a more personal world of games.We should do this because (a) work is structurally bad and getting worse as a result of technology; and (b) a more ludic, game-like life would help us to attain a valuable form of human flourishing. I offer three arguments in support of this view, and respond to critics who argue that withdrawing from the demands of work would result in a more selfish and impoverished form of existence. (shrink)

A description of how microelectronics and robotics are tending to increase unemployment, followed by comparisons between the social policies of Western European countries and the United States with reard to this problem. A conclusion points out the need for a social philosophy of technology that acknowledges workers' rights.

Robotics and artificial intelligence are beginning to fundamentally change the relative profitability and productivity of investments in capital versus human labor; creating technological unemployment at all levels of the workforce; from the North to the developing world. As robotics and expert systems become cheaper and more capable the percentage of the population that can find employment will also fall; stressing economies already trying to curtail "entitlements" and adopt austerity. Two additional technology-driven trends will exacerbate the structural unemployment (...) crisis in the coming decades; desktop manufacturing and anti-aging medicine. Desktop manufacturing threatens to disintermediate the half of all workers involved in translating ideas into products in the hands of consumers; while anti-aging therapies will increase the old age dependency ratio of retirees to tax-paying workers. Policies that are being proposed to protect or create employment will have only a temporary moderating effect on job loss. Over time these policies; which will impose raise costs; lower the quality of goods and services; and lower competitiveness; will become fiscally impossible and lose political support. In order to enjoy the benefits of technological innovation and longer; healthier lives we will need to combine policies that control the pace of replacing paid human labor with a universal basic income guarantee provided through taxation and the public ownership of wealth. The intensifying debate over the reform of "entitlements" will be the strategic opening for a campaign for BIG to replace disability and unemployment insurance; Social Security; and other elements of the welfare state. (shrink)

The relevance of the research of current problem is that the development of information and digital technologies contributes to digital development of the society, which is based on new wave of technological progress. The purpose of the research is to show how informative revolution of the XX1 century contributes formation of developmental concept of information-digital technologies in the conditions of the electronic era; to identify contradictory phenomena that contribute to the reduction of labor as a result of progressive robotics, (...) which is being introduced through digital technologies. The technologies that are used today to replace people are different; the need for human resources is reduced thanks to robots, automation and computerization, and other high-tech gadgets. Methodology. The methods of theoretical analysis - deduction and induction, historical and logical, comparative and system analysis, informational method, which contribute insight into the essence of the studied phenomenon as a complex phenomenon and dynamic process. Results : It has been proven that, thanks to various well-known developments in information digital technologies and robotics, many experts believe that society is at an early stage of the new industrial revolution. This type of revolution in the future can change the way people live and work, just as a steam engine did 200 years ago. Technological unemployment is one of the main reasons for introducing the concept of development of information and digital technologies in the conditions of the electronic era, which has contributed to increasing the overall unemployment rate in Western countries over the past 30 years. The development of information-computer technologies, as well as other types of automation and the Internet, played a significant role in shaping the concept of information-digital technologies. Conclusion. Digital society focuses on the development of human resources; therefore, in connection with the introduction of the concept of development of information and digital technologies, many workplaces with cheap labor can disappear. The world is turning into a digital society and the world is ruled by a figure, the world is controlled by intelligence, intelligence, algorithms and digitalization. The digital society consists of a set of algorithms that are controlled by information and computer technologies that penetrate digital management, which is based on intellectual and rational power, represented by intellectual and creative human resources. It is human resources that develop robotics, artificial intelligence, computerization, automation, robotics, which are based on the activity of algorithms. These varieties of digital society accelerate the potential for long-term productivity gains through intellectualization. Practical recommendations. Formation of the concept of development of information and digital technologies in the digital era will contribute to the development of information bases of the society, which is based on advanced technologies, small business development, which is based on networked intelligent platforms, which requires the creation of jobs in the Internet and the search for new types of employment. (shrink)

Justice in production is concerned with ensuring the benefits and burdens of work are distributed in a way reflective of persons’ status as moral equals. While a variety of accounts of productive justice have been offered, insufficient attention has been paid to the distribution of work’s benefits and burdens in the future. In this paper, after granting for the sake of argument forecasts of widespread future technological unemployment, we consider the implications this has for egalitarian requirements of productive (...) justice. We argue that in relation to all the benefits affiliated with work, other than undertaking social contribution, the technological replacement of work is unproblematic as these benefits could in principle be attained elsewhere. But because social contribution uniquely corresponds to work (when work is understood as more than a paid job), the normative assessment of technological unemployment will turn on the value theories of justice give to contributive activity. We then argue that despite technological replacement being plainly beneficial insofar as it relieves persons from the burdens of work, such as dangerous work or drudgery, because the nature of care work makes it less susceptible to technological replacement, egalitarian concern will require the burdens of care work to be shared equally between individuals. (shrink)