The Revolution Will Not Be Automated

Despite the severe and widespread concerns with algorithmic transparency and the opacity of AI-driven automation, their arrival has made one thing quite clear: our present-day society is not ready, and it has nothing to do with the new technologies themselves. Increasing income inequality, undervalued and unrecognized labour, a growing wealth gap, the erosion of workers’ rights, widespread work precarity, policies systemically favouring capital at the expense of labour, and an outdated social safety net are the natural result of capitalist logic and its institutions set up to govern Canadian society. They are old problems, albeit now with a robotic twist. If we do not address these problems directly for what they are, independent of the technology that brought them into sharper relief, we risk sorely misdirecting the future of work in Canada. But more than that, we risk squandering the current political momentum, popular interest and ethical self-awareness to bring about the free, equitable and democratic society we should already inhabit. -- From author's conclusion