Fully Automated Futures: AI and the Workplace

• Credit value: 30 credits at Level 5
• Convenor: Professor Sophia Price
• Assessment: a 1500-word reflective task (30%) and 3000-word report (70%)

In this module we explore the potential for technology, particularly automation, to transform the organisation of the workplace and human labour. Theorists have suggested that automation will replace human labour in the production, distribution and management of goods and services and in turn reorder workplaces and societies. We will explore the possibilities of technologies to change the future of work and the implications of this for the organisation of societies, economies and politics, at a national and global scale.

Indicative syllabus

• Understanding technological change, labour and class
• Industrial revolutions, social organisation and political contestation
• Networked societies: from Fordist to post-Fordist production
• Nimble fingers: gendered labour in technological revolution
• Gig economies and the precariat
• Robots, AI and the future of work
• Changing patterns of work and leisure
• Exclusions and marginalisation in global perspective
• Fully automated futures?

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

• understand the changes that technological advance has historically brought to the organisation of work and societies, both nationally and at a global scale
• understand the transformations evident in contemporary societies due to rapid technological advance, and how this might shape social futures
• explore how policy makers have and could respond to the threats and opportunities posed by technological change
• reflect critically on the impact of technological change on societies and the workplace
• effectively research and present ideas about future social change.