Abstract
Robotization of Work? delves into the arc of humanity’s fears and hopes surrounding robotic automation. The book, by Barbara Czarniawska and Bernward Joerges, is based on the assumption that ground-breaking popular media provides a window onto public perceptions of robots over time, illuminating fear, curiosity and inspiration in turn. Life imitates art, and, according to Czarniawska and Joerges, art also inspires life. Drawing upon portrayals of robots in science fiction as well as in contemporary media and the social sciences, Robotization of Work? explores the extent to which technological advances have affected – and will likely continue to affect – the global workforce. The authors map the portrayals of robots in popular media over time, seeking to determine whether public opinion about robotization has been tied to the realities of this technology or if the public’s hopes and fears about robots and automation have taken on a life of their own.
The book comprises eight chapters and is structured in three parts: robot revolution, robots and pop culture, and robotization in the media and social sciences. In the first part (Chapters 1 and 2), the book explores the popularization of the word ‘robot’ itself. The authors track the term from its first use in Karel Capek’s 1920 play, Rossum Universal Robots R.U.R, in which ‘robota’ means labour and ‘robotnik’ signifies a worker. Czarniawska and Joerges then move on to explore the trajectory of robotic use, concluding that by 2025 robots will perform 45% of all manufacturing tasks. One of this section’s rather harrowing claims is that, with workplace robotization increasing at its current rate, income inequality will worsen dramatically in the coming decades. The authors posit that the top-earning 10% of the global population, who earned 47% of the total labour income in 2012, will earn 130% more than the remaining 90% of the population by 2040 as a direct result of robotization. Another concern is that, while up to now robots have mainly affected blue-collar jobs, the next wave of digital upgrades might bring impacts for white-collar jobs as well.
In the second part of the book (Chapters 3 and 4), Czarniawska and Joerges sift through 100 years of popular culture to describe the impact robotics have had on the ‘real world’. The authors argue convincingly that popular culture can shape human action, using several examples from science fiction. For example, in Capek’s Rossum’s Universal Robots and Isaac Asimov’s infamous Three Laws of Robotics, robots performing menial tasks rise up and revolt, bringing death and destruction to the humans that created them. In these stories, the robots’ main function was to work, which caused friction with labour unions fearing competition. Likewise, Robotization of Work? mentions Kurt Vonnegut’s 1952 novel, Player Piano, in which robots take over the workforce, leaving the human workers angry and stripped of self-respect. Czarniawska and Joerges then turn their focus to key sci-fi films, such as Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and the Star Wars franchise. Unlike previous examples, Star Wars presents a future in which humans (and aliens) coexist with different kinds of robots, known as droids. The two most famous droids in the series are C-3PO and R2-D2. These characters raise interesting questions about the role of robots, as C-3PO has human emotions, such as fear, which can affect its loyalty, while R2-D2 is loyal almost to a fault and even overrides its own programming to save the day.
After this interesting discussion of a century of popular works featuring robots, Robotization of Work? introduces a tentative taxonomy that addresses two double-barrelled questions: What good and bad things can robots do to people, and what good and bad things can people do to robots? Crucially, the use of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ here is meant to carry both functional and moral implications. Czarniawska and Joerges ultimately conclude, based on a political economy perspective that is reinforced by depictions in popular media, that robots are unlikely ever to free people from the need to labour. However, the authors posit that robots can do jobs that humans physically cannot do, as seen in the replicants from Blade Runner, who perform complex tasks more efficiently than humans. Another example is the Star Wars surgical bot, who can offer companionship and care, as do the robots in Asimov’s I, Robot. In contrast, the authors note examples of bad actions by robots – including criminal acts like those of Blade Runner’s replicants, or even murder, as committed by HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The authors use these same popular works to illustrate the good things that humans can do to robots, including the bestowal of free will, and the bad things human can do to robots, such as treating them like slaves. The authors’ taxonomy offers an interesting interpretation of the ethics of robotic forms designed by humans. Humans are good to robots when they give them non-humanoid forms (e.g. the Star Wars character R2-D2), making them appear less threatening, and when they do not project human failings onto robots. In contrast, humans are bad to robots when they create robots that look like humans that are burdened with human failings; C-3PO was made to resemble a person and frequently suffered from anxiety and fear that prevented it from performing optimally.
In the third part of the book (Chapters 5, 6 and 7), Robotization of Work? shifts from the entertainment sector to educational media with the goal of reassessing ethical and social questions. The authors present the various ways in which robots can be useful to people, such as performing jobs that are dirty, dull, or dangerous. These range from the merely tedious – vacuuming, cooking – to the perilous, such as performing medical procedures in dangerous arenas (e.g. in war zones or involving highly infectious diseases). Robots and automation can offer companionship and care, assist disabled and elderly people, and perform some complex tasks more efficiently, like diagnosing cancer at an earlier stage, or assisting in surgery. Chapter 8 concludes by assuring readers that the possibility of robotization taking over employment and leaving humans jobless is complicated, but in the end it’s up to humans to make sure that economic policies are implemented that will aid those who might need other jobs.
What is fascinating about Robotization of Work? is the way Czarniawska and Joerges present a detailed analysis of portrayals of robots in popular culture and science fiction while maintaining creativity and humour in their writing. It’s quite interesting to read how the authors chose these sources. Not only do they offer a greater understanding of how robots can be used, for better or worse, but also of how humanity views these possibilities. Through the book, Czarniawska and Joerges provide new insights and arguments not only regarding past technological advances and their effect on the workforce but also about avoiding economic downfalls in the next digital wave.
No single book is able to cover such a broad topic comprehensively. Thus, the authors of Robotization of Work? point to areas for further exploration; for instance, the roles of robots discussed in the book could also be viewed in relation to decision-making and autonomy (Murray, Rhymer, & Sirmon, 2021) and the impact of substituting human decision-making with machine-learning abilities (Balasubramanian, Ye, & Xu, 2022). After reading the book, one realizes that it is now evident that intelligent machines transform worker autonomy into artificial autonomy. This is particularly the case with intelligent machines that appear more human-like as they create a direct link between robots and biology. Admittedly, we often assume that intelligent machines, such as humanoid robots, will one day challenge us, superseding the relationships we currently have with, say, Siri or Google’s Alexa. Hence, the question hanging over the book is, ‘Can humans ever build a brain?’
While reading Robotization of Work?, the obvious challenge that becomes clear is the potential impediments to learning and hence the possible end of reason. In the twenty-first century, human learning is being replaced by machine learning, and with the weakening of human learning, research shows that intelligent machines orchestrate lower levels of conscientiousness over time. This is important because conscientiousness is the most valid predictor of work behaviour across work settings (Tang et al., 2022). Although Robotization of Work? does not delve into the consequences of the augmentation of human capabilities by robots, it inspires several interesting questions. For instance, if machines will have consciousness, how do they relate to the concept of a soul? Should these conscious beings pay taxes and have pensions? As the workplace continues to experience more integration between humans and robots, it will become important to answer complicated ethical questions, such as the possibility of robots gaining free will and human rights. The picture I paint here is full of unknowns; the idea of algorithmic moral authenticity versus human moral authenticity puzzles me. A reflection on this dystopian future might depress or thrill, depending who sets the rules.
Due to the usefulness of robots and machine learning in the workplace, human skills are gradually becoming obsolete. For example, the value of robot-assisted surgeries makes the role of a surgeon redundant, and instead the robot becomes the surgeon. In addition, in our daily lives, personal assistants like Siri and Google Maps are possibly affecting our abilities to sense or learn geography and mental mapping. Another example is the use of DALL-E from Open AI to generate digital art. Although DALL-E has democratized art acquisition, the creativity of artists is being challenged. Machine learning differs from human learning in several ways. Machine learning depends on data, network effects and unlimited storage, and it lacks feelings. In contrast, human learning prizes the power of reason, emotional intelligence, defined social contexts, experiences and self-reflection. But what happens when humans surrender their reasoning and learning to robots? An insight that I gained is that we must question the utility of robots and their impact on human learning.
Additionally, the fears and hopes articulated in Robotization of Work? invite a conversation about the concept of ‘bounded automation’ to describe how organizational forces shape the utility of technology in the employment sector (Fleming, 2019). For example, Fleming believes that some kinds of jobs are not worth automating, such as customer care in call centres. He points out that although it was predicted in the 1990s that chatbots could completely replace humans within the call centre industry, this has not yet happened. Instead, the industry has surged, with millions of people employed in call centres across the United Kingdom and United States.
Overall, Robotization of Work? contributes to the current debate surrounding the competition between robots and humans. The relationship between robots and humans seems to alternate between happy endings and dystopian fears. A final thought from reading this book is that as humans look towards the future, we will constantly face the challenge of remaining relevant in an ever-changing workforce. At the same time, humans will continually be inspired since the cycle of inspiration between life and art is ever present.