UPC: 9781503631427 | Automation Is a Myth (Paperback)

UPC lookup results for: 9781503631427 | Automation Is a Myth (Paperback)

For some automation will usher in a labor-free utopia; for others it signals a disastrous age-to-come. Yet whether seen as dream or nightmare automation argues Munn is ultimately a fable that rests on a set of triple fictions. There is the myth of full autonomy claiming that machines will take over production and supplant humans. But far from being self-acting technical solutions are piecemeal; their support and maintenance reveals the immense human labor behind autonomous processes. There is the myth of universal automation with technologies framed as a desituated force sweeping the globe. But this fiction ignores the social cultural and geographical forces that shape technologies at a local level. And there is the myth of automating everyone the generic figure of the human at the heart of automation claims. But labor is socially stratified and so automation s fallout will be highly uneven falling heavier on some (immigrants people of color women) than others. Munn moves from machine minders in China to warehouse pickers in the United States to explore the ways that new technologies do (and don t) reconfigure labor. Combining this rich array of human stories with insights from media and cultural studies Munn points to a more nuanced localized and racialized understanding of the future of work.