[hirundo]

While the title says "Automation Is a Myth," the description immediately retreats to "full autonomy" and "universal automation" are mythical. Those are very different propositions. That motte and bailey maneuver turns the title into clickbait and damages the credibility of the book from page one.

[lukemunn]

Yes the title is provocative, and can only be so long. The introduction chapter articulates more precisely what I'm arguing. Chapter summaries are available here: https://www.sup.org/books/extra/?id=34899&i=Contents.htm - I've pasted a section below that might help sharpen the claim.

Automation is a myth, a long-running fable about the future of work that needs to be reconsidered. Whether embraced as dream or cautioned as nightmare, automation is ultimately a fiction, a fantasy. "Myth" does not imply that automated technologies do not exist or that there have not been technically driven transformations in the nature of work over the past century. But these transformations have been piecemeal rather than total. They have taken place differently within different cultures and locations. And they have impacted particular races and genders rather than a generic humanity.

[hirundo]

You're repeating "Automation is a myth" now in a context where there is no space constraint to writing "Full automation is a myth", or "AGI is a myth", either of which is supportable. To me that crosses over from provocative to misleading, as it doesn't fairly represent the far less provocative thesis.

[lukemunn]

Of course, as the author, I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this. :-) The first chapter establishes what is and isn't being claimed and the rest of the book fleshes those arguments out. The idea here is not some massive 'debunking' exercise, but rather pushing against automation rhetoric to explore actually existing work conditions and technological fallout. Certainly that's harder to see from a summary on a webpage though, without having the full book in front of you.

[drewcoo]

I was willing to accept the title until I read this. And now I agree with the GP.

You're clearly creating a strawman, stretching the meaning of automation into something nobody thinks it is so that you can proclaim it a myth.

The title should be "Total Automation . . ." or "Complete Automation . . ." so as not to mislead like this.

[lukemunn]

Full/Total/Complete automation is one of the fictions, but it's not the only one.

Automation is also framed as a universal phenomenon that will sweep across the globe, remaking 'the economy' and society. But there are economies plural and technology is cultural and contextual. So I push against this concept and point to automated technologies and how they differ from place to place, in the book zooming into Xinjiang in China, for example, to examine how technologies intersect with historical prejudice.

Automation is also linked 'the human', but historically some people are more 'human' than others and the history of labor is one of inequality. So some (PoC, women, immigrants, etc) bear the brunt of automated technologies while others less.

In other words, automation is not just a myth because its not full automation, but because its a story that obscures the messier and more devastating details that happen on the ground.

[beepbooptheory]

I'm not sure I understand this. You read that title and thought the book was going to argue that the literal concept of automation is a myth?

[jhbadger]

I for one did. Or at least that it was going to make the argument that "automation creates more jobs than it destroys" that you sometimes hear.