E-raamat: Automation Is a Myth

"Warehouses, factories, fields, supermarkets, smart-homes. These are just some of the material sites that confront myths of automation in Luke Munn's tightly crafted book traversing racial histories, gender politics, contemporary labor regimes, and global logistics. Fantasies of autonomous technologies and visions of freedom, we discover, are almost always accompanied by human endurance and suffering, as well as sparkling acts of collective ingenuity that mess with machines. Munn critically furnishes the bleak, uneven world of automation with alternatives for technology design inspired by activists, artists, and social movements. A perfect handbook for diagnosing the future-present of automated worlds."Ned Rossiter, author of Software, Infrastructure, Labor "Accessibly written and powerfully argued, Luke Munn's Automation is a Myth carefully demonstrates how the fiction that automation is everywhere and that every aspect of labor and production can or will be automated obscures racialized and gendered power relations and precludes opportunities to shape more radical technologically mediated futures. With wide ranging historical and geopolitical examples of automation fantasies, Munn forcefully demonstrates the importance of contextualizing and de-universalizing conversations about labor, technology and automation."Neda Atanasoski, author of Surrogate Humanity: Race, Robots and the Politics of Technological Futures "An engaging, insightful, and instructive read, this book offers a compelling new perspective on the future of labor-saving technology. More than a myth-buster, Munn is an original voice who offers a vision for a more humane and productive economy."Frank Pasquale, author of New Laws of Robotics: Defending Human Expertise in the Age of AI "With Automation Is a Myth, Luke Munn makes an insightful contribution to the growing body of literature that critically investigates current accounts about 'automation.' ... Munn has written a thought-provoking critique of the underlying assumptions of most automation talk today, bringing to bear the insights of an eclectic group of scholars and commentators."Richard A. Bachmann, H-Sci-Med-Tech "In Automation is a Myth, Luke Munn thoughtfully demands greater specificity of automation discourse. Munn's book is a call to avoid totalizing narratives around automation, and instead to be attentive to the what, when, where, and who of the phenomenon."Karen Levy, Social Forces "Drawing on scholarship from racial capitalism and gender studies, this excellent book offers much-needed depth and a contrarian viewpoint to the social and political impacts of automation. Highly recommended."S. J. Chapman Jr., CHOICE "[ Automation is a Myth] transcends the silos of media studies to expand our understanding of automation by synthesising literature from sociology, race and gender studies and science and technology studies."Lutfun Nahar Lata, New Media & Society