How has the automation of work changed the ways we live? What challenges and opportunities does automation of work pose for the future? This multidisciplinary colloquium draws on materials in social science, science, and the humanities to explore how societies have organized themselves relative to technology in the past, and what changes are currently taking place. As we are now in the midst of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), and dislocated by covid-19, how we live and work is undergoing profound change. New technologies pose new global challenges in the areas of equality, sustainable development, and education. Students will examine the wave of technology-driven transformations occurring on a global scale, including artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and 3D printing. The future of work is explored through literature, policy, and scientific expression, as we anticipate how humans will spend their time as current-day work becomes automated and permanently changed by the impacts of covid-19. They will consider the 4IR as an opportunity to critique theories of technological change and construct their own narratives of change in individual case study analysis assignments.

Core: Colloquium (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks