Futurology: We Were Promised a World Without Work… (with Nick Srnicek and Nils Gilman)

We’re being told that automation can free us. Machines will do the drudge work, and we will reclaim our time. But that’s not how things are going. Instead, artificial intelligence has concentrated power in the hands of the companies that own the infrastructure and outrun nation-states’ ability to regulate it.

In this episode of Futurology, author and scholar Nick Srnicek revisits the provocative idea he helped popularize after the 2008 financial crisis: that the left should fight for technology to reduce work and expand freedom, rather than simply resisting it. Srnicek describes his new book, Silicon Empires, which traces the shift from ephemeral platforms to hard infrastructure in Silicon Valley.

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Mentioned in this Episode:

#ACCELERATE: Manifesto for an Accelerationist Politics — Alex Williams and Nick Srnicek (Manifesto/Essay, 2013)

Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work — Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams (Book, 2015)

T.A.Z.: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism — Hakim Bey (Book, 1991)