Book Preview: Essays in AI: Automation, Tech and the Future of 9-5 Work
I've been in the final stages of finishing a new book of essays on AI, Automation and the future of work.
Category Ideas
Young People Are Ignored by the Mainstream Media
In 1997, Gangland: cultural elites and the new generationalism dominated Australia’s book scene. Arguing that young people were under-represented in Australia’s mainstream media, subjected to ‘moral panics’ and increasingly demonised by the press, the book painted a picture of youth culture in crisis.
Thomas Jefferson: How Law Should be Part of a Broad Training in the Liberal Arts
I find it interesting sometimes to contrast the narrow, vocational-based education system we have today with the kind of education system envisaged in the late 1700s. Often, the aim back then was to receive a broad-education in what today we…
Automating Job Applications: Should a Robot Apply For a Job on Your Behalf?
An estimated 90% of large companies are using automated software to read and respond to resumes. From tracking software that reads a resume looking for keywords, to automated emails, phone interviews and skills testing – companies are doing less manual processing than ever before.…
Expert culture has killed the innovator in workplaces
Over the last few decades, the Western world has had an increasingly specialised workforce, with workers trained in narrow skills, for increasingly narrow positions. However, the more narrow our jobs have become, the less capable we have become in inventing…
Degrees of separation: companies shed degree requirements to promote merit over qualifications
At the end of 2016, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) revealed that close to two-thirds of all Australians had completed a degree or apprenticeship. The growth in the number of people attending a university or TAFE has risen out…
Lifetime Employment in Japan: Casual Work, Part-Time Work and Women under Equal Opportunity Law
Lifetime employment has long been the cornerstone of corporate governance in Japan. College graduates at large firms have traditionally been guaranteed employment until retirement. These graduates, almost exclusively men, are guaranteed job security in return for complete loyalty to their…
The Election of Donald Trump Sounds the Death Noll for Privilege and Identity Politics
It’s May 26, 2016 and Donald J. Trump attends a presidential rally in Bismarck, North Dakota. “We’re going to make America wealthy again,” he tells the crowd of mostly white, mostly middle-aged men. “You have to be wealthy in order…
How Specialisation is Destroying My Generation
Gertrude Stein originally called those who returned from World War I a ‘lost generation’, disoriented, wandering directionless through life, battered and broken by the war and unable to contribute to literary endeavours. Today’s youth face not a war of arms,…
The Non-Coercive State: The Creation of Pacifist Societies
In Political Liberalism, John Rawls argues that, “political power is always coercive power backed by the government’s use of sanctions, for government alone has authority to use force in upholding its laws” (Rawls 1993, p. 136).[i] In saying as much, Rawls is echoing a commonly held belief: that the state has the power to coerce its citizens, and this coercion prevents citizens from breaking the law. In most modern states, citizens are routinely threatened with arrest and incarceration if they do not abide by the state’s legal system. The language of “authority” is often used to justify this coercive action (Goffman 1982; Morris 2004, p. 196; Weber 1947).[ii]