We Are Not Machines - by Sarah O'Connor (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

"Original and enlightening....the kind of writing that AI will never replace."--The Times

From award-winning Financial Times journalist Sarah O'Connor, a deeply reported investigation into how AI and robotics are transforming the way we work.

Automation, we were told, was meant to do away with dull and dangerous tasks, freeing us to pursue more fulfilling work. But AI now threatens to turn even creative tasks into dehumanizing labor.

Investigative journalist Sarah O'Connor has spent the last few years gathering stories of burned-out Amazon warehouse workers, Orwellian employee surveillance softwares, AI job interviews, translators frantically trying to keep up with machines, and truck drivers endlessly on the road.

As Sarah O'Connor writes, "Automation was meant to do away with dull, dirty, dangerous tasks. It was meant to free us up for more interesting and creative work. So why was my notebook filling up with stories of good jobs turned bad, and bad jobs turned worse? These people were not being liberated by machines. Instead, they were being crunched into systems run by machines and paced by machines, in which important concepts such as fairness, intelligence, even human-ness itself, were being quietly redefined by machines. And that left me with a question. A question that prompted me to write this book. We think we're robotizing our work, but what if we're actually robotizing ourselves?"

Our fear that machines will make us more robotic, O'Connor argues, is not new and has its origins in the industrial revolution, when workers fought against the expectation that they should toil like tireless machines. Inspired by campaigners from nineteenth-century English cotton mills to twenty-first century Swedish mines, O'Connor lays out a path where we can fight for work that is more respectful of our limits, and more worthy of the capacity of our minds.

Review Quotes

Praise for We Are Not Machines

"Original and enlightening, rooted in reality and populated by people. Not many books about the labor market make you laugh and bring tears to your eyes. This one does. It's the kind of writing that AI will never replace."

--The Times

"Concluding that the 'real danger is not that we successfully make machines in our image, but that we silently remake ourselves in theirs, ' O'Connor nonetheless maintains optimism that the 'future of work can be... worthy of the human mind.' It's a balanced and forward-thinking take on AI."

--Publishers Weekly

"A fierce, wise, beautiful book."

--Tim Harford, author of The Data Detective

"A lively and engaging read which teases out some compelling human stories. O'Connor describes both the peril and promise unleashed hy AI-and issues a powerful call to arms for us all about how to respond. A must-read for educators, policy makers, executives, and employees."

--Gillian Tett, author of Anthro-Vision

"Brilliantly insightful...no one provides a better worm's eye view of the world of work than Sarah O'Connor."

--Andy Haldane, former Bank of England chief economist

"Sarah is the best writer out there on the world of work, and her debut is as insightful, surprising and illuminating as I hoped."

--Sathnam Sanghera, author of Empireland

"An invaluable guide to one of the biggest economic stories of our age. Most books about AI lurch between hype and despair but Sarah O'Connor has captured something far rarer: a glimpse of how machines are actually reshaping our lives and livelihoods."

--Ed Conway, author of Material World

"A hopeful and urgent reminder that the future of work is what we make it. Her warning is important and grounded: there is a better path."

--Carl Benedikt Frey, author of How Progress Ends

About the Author

Sarah O'Connor is a columnist, reporter and associate editor at the Financial Times. She writes a weekly column focused on the world of work, as well as longer features and investigations. She has won the Orwell Prize for Exposing Britain's Social Evils, the Wincott Award for financial journalism, Business Commentator of the Year at the Comment Awards, Financial/Economic story of the year at the Foreign Press Awards and Business and Finance Journalist of the year at the British Press Awards.