Back to the future: A continuity of dialogue on work and technology at the ILO

AuthorMiriam A. CHERRY
Date01 March 2020
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/ilr.12156
Published date01 March 2020
International Labour Review, Vol. 159 (2020), No. 1
Copyright © The author 2020
Journal compi lation © Intern ational Lab our Organi zation 2020
*Saint Louis University Law School, email: miriam.cherry@SLU.edu.
Responsibility for opinions expressed in signed articles rests solely with their authors, and
publication does not constitute an endorsement by the ILO.
Back to the future:
A continuity of dialogue on work
and technology at the ILO
Miriam A. CHERRY*
Abstract. Concerns about technological unemployment are not new. Specically,
policy debates surrounding automation processes in the 1960s reected both opti-
mism and concerns about the job-destroying potential of technology. Studying the
archives, and in particular the information collected by the Bureau of Automation,
shows that many of today’s policy proposals were originally raised at the ILO dur-
ing that period, even though they were never translated into regulatory policy. This
article thus suggests that reopening this past dialogue may reveal useful insights
for addressing current challenges, and enable us to achieve the world of work we
wish to see in the future.
Keywords: future of work, technological change, automation, unemployment,
job insecurity, development policy, history, role of ILO.
New technologies, such as on-demand platforms, algorithmic management,
articial intelligence (AI), 3D printing, virtual presence, people analytics and
gamication are all beginning to have an impact on the world of work. Many
contemporary scholars and policy-makers predict that these trends will pro-
voke a new wave of technological unemployment, and there is an ongoing de-
bate about how many jobs or occupations will be gained or lost (Brynjolfsson
and McAfee, 2014). While many portray the concern about a jobless future as a
seemingly new issue (Frey and Osborne, 2017), current discussions are funda-
mentally linked to a longstanding dialogue on automation and work at the ILO.
Concerns about technology and its impact on labour are not new. The pol-
icy issues around automation, technological unemployment, retraining and the
appropriate legal and policy responses were raised in the 1930s, the 19 60s, the
1980s and now again today. While each burst of technological development
ignited intense hope, anxiety and debate, the dialogue did not result in concrete
changes in regulatory policy. The celebration of the ILO’s centenary provides
International Labour Review
2
an opportunity to re-examine the research on work and technology, and to re-
open conversations that have been largely consigned to the past. The aim of
this article is to sift through the historical archives of the ILO and other contem-
porary sources in order to select the ideas and policy strategies that might have
the most applicability today.
In the 19 60s, proponents of automation pointed to the decade’s signicant
advancements in areas like satellite communication, space exploration and elec-
tronic data processing (Gavett, 2016). Similarly, factory automation was seen by
some as a form of progress that could free workers from mundane and strenu-
ous labour. Optimists argued that increased automation would “ensure future
technological progress, increase productivity and ease the strain on workers”
(Hong, 2004, p. 52). In a 1966 report, the US National Commission on Tech-
nology, Automation, and Economic Progress claimed that increased automation
could lead to better overall working conditions by “eliminating many … dirty,
menial, and servile jobs” (National Commission on Technology, Automation and
Economic Progress, 1966, p. xi). It could also result in shorter working hours,
increased leisure and “a growing abundance of goods and a continuous ow of
improved and new products” (ibid.).
Conversely, critics across academic and professional elds warned of a dys-
topian future with rampant unemployment and losses in human autonomy. In
1960, Norbert Wiener, who developed the idea of cybernetics, warned of the
dangers of learning machines achieving “a certain degree of thinking” that could
transcend human intelligence. His warning included a doomsday prediction that
hypothetical learning machines could be programmed into a “push-button”
nuclear war that could destroy human civilization (Wiener, 1960). Other techno-
logical thinkers of the time argued that automation and learning machines could
result in a signicant loss of human autonomy. In The technological society,
philosopher Jacques Ellul argued that “there [could] be no human autonomy in
the face of technical autonomy” (Ellul, 1964 , p. 138). Similarly, American sociolo-
gist Herbert Marcuse suggested that increased automation and advanced tech-
nologies could result in machine control and domination (Marcuse, 1964).
Much like in the 1960s, the current debate surrounding automation and
learning technologies focuses on the tug-of-war between increased global pros-
perity and a potential loss of human control and autonomy. Silicon Valley leaders
have expressed both optimism and concern over the future of AI and automa-
tion. For example, Google’s engineering director Ray Kurzweil considers that
intelligent technologies open endless possibilities for human advancement that
will result in “new types of jobs creating new types of dollars that don’t exist yet”
(Cliord, 2018). He further argues that such advancements will create “more pro-
found music, literature, science, [and] technology” and fundamentally improve
humanity (ibid.). Others, like Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, have warned of
articial intelligence’s potential to evolve into “an immortal dictator from which
we would never escape” (Holley, 2018).
This article focuses on a comparison of today’s conversations about work,
technology and AI with the dialogue in the 196 0s about automation and con-
comitant policy proposals. The rst section discusses the current landscape of
labour, technology and regulation. The second presents the social, political and

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