Smart Machines and Service Work: Automation in an Age of Stagnation

In recent decades digital devices have reshaped daily life, while tech companies’ stock prices have thrust them to the forefront of the business world. In this rapid, global development, the promise of a new machine age has been accompanied by worries about accelerated joblessness thanks to new forms of automation. Jason E. Smith looks behind the techno—hype to lay out the realities of a period of economic slowdown and expanding debt: low growth rates and an increase of labor—intensive jobs...