A World Without Work 노동의 시대는 끝났다 by Daniel Susskind 대니얼 서스킨드

"本書は、現代における最大の経済的試練の一つをテーマとしている。迫り来る驚くべき技術革新によって、働いて稼ぎを得るということを全員が全員行なえるわけではない世界が来たら、その先はどうするのか。…この先に待ち構える根幹的な難問、それは分配の問題だ。技術進歩は人類全体をかつてないほどにゆたかにしているかもしれないが、富を分配する従来の方法――労働に対して賃金を払う――が過去のような効果を示さなくなるのだとすれば、そのゆたかさをどうやって分かち合っていけばいいのだろう」「技術進歩は僕たちを、人間がする仕事が足りない世界へと連れていく。僕たちの祖先を悩ませていた経済問題は消滅し、かわりに3つの新たな問題と入れ替わっていく。1つめは不平等の問題。2つめは政治的支配力の問題。そして3つめは人生の意味の問題だ。…21世紀の僕たちは、新しい時代を築いていかなければならない。安定をもたらす基盤として、もはや有償の仕事には頼らない時代だ」（本書より）イギリスの新進気鋭の経済学者が、21世紀の〈所得分配国家〉〈資本分配国家〉〈労働者支援国家〉を描き出す" ".....New technologies have always provoked panic about workers being replaced by machines. In the past, such fears have been misplaced, and many economists maintain that they remain so today. Yet in A World Without Work, Daniel Susskind shows why this time really is different. Advances in artificial intelligence mean that all kinds of tasks - from diagnosing illnesses to drafting contracts - are increasingly within the reach of computers. The threat of technological unemployment is real. So how can we all thrive in a world with less work? Susskind reminds us that technological progress could bring about unprecedented prosperity, solving one of mankind's oldest problems: how to ensure everyone has enough to live on. The challenge will be to distribute this prosperity fairly, constrain the power of Big Tech, and provide meaning in a world where work is no longer the centre of our lives. In this visionary, pragmatic and ultimately hopeful book, Susskind shows us the way...."

from Amazon

며칠 전에 엘빈 토플러의 책들을 서재에서 발견했다.  학창 시절 참 열심히 읽었는데.... 미래를 예측한다는 것은 참 어려운 일이다. 변수가 많고 결과만 보고 판단하는 세상일수록 미래를 예측한다는 것은 더욱 어려운 작업이다. 이 책의 저자도 어려운 일에 도전하고 있는 거 같다. 이 책은 자동화의 완성, 미래에 대한 준비와 교육, 일자리가 없는 미래, 인간의 가치의 실현, 정치 및 이데올로기, 존재론적 질문 등 어려운 이야기를 다루고 있기 때문에 읽기에 쉽지 않은 작품이다. 좀 더 정확한 이해를 위해서 인터넷이나 사전의 도움을 많이 받아야 했지만 읽는 즐거움을 주는 지적인 작품이었다. 영어공부에 목표가 의는 독자는 시간을 갖고 읽으면 좋은 책이다. 난해하게 쓴 책이 아니기 때문에 읽는 재미가 있다. 한국어 번역판도 읽었는데 좋은 거 같다. 다음은 본문의 내용이다.

"Whlile the pandemic offers a preview of the problems that a world with greater automation will have to grapple with issues regarding the distribution of prosperity, the power of Big Tech, and the search for meaning - it is also probably hastening the arrival of that world ..... COVID-19 strengthens the incentive to replace human beings with machines ..." "Technologival progress, it appeared, was neither skill-biased nor unskill-biased, as the old stories had implied. Rather it was task-biased, with machines able to perform certain types of tasks but unable to perform others ..." "The fact that educated professionals tend to use their heads, rather than their hands, to perform their task does not matter. Far more important is whether the tasks are 'routine' ....." " Advances in machine translation, for instance, have come not from developing a machine that mimics a talented translator, but from having computers scan millions of human translated pieces of text to figure out interlingual correspondences and patters ...." "The word algorithm, derived from the name of a ninth-century mathematician called Abdallah Muhammad ibn Musa Al-Khwarizmi, simply means a set of step-by-step instructions ...." ".... 'AI fallacy' ; the mistaken belief that the only way to develop of human beings is to copy the way that human beings perform that task ...." " ...... many tasks that cannot yet be automated are found  not in the best-paid roles, but in jobs like social workers, paramedics ......" ".... we will have to constantly re-educate ourselves ...." ... the role for the Big State is not in production but in distribution." " ... we need to cultivate a set of 'virtues' in students: 'moral virtues such as honesty and kindness, civic virtues such as community service, intellectual virtues such as curiosity and creativity, and performance virtues such as diligence and perseverance ...." " ... The economic problem that haunted our ancestors, that of making the ecnomic pie large enough for everyone to live on, will fade away, and three new problems will emerge to take its place. First, the problem of inequality, of working out how to share this economic prosperity with everyone in society. Second, the problem of political power, of determining who gets to control the technologies responsible for this prosperity and on what terms. and the third, the problem of meaning, of figuring out how to use this properity not just to live with less work but to live well ...."