CFP: Cyborg Workers: The Past, Present and Future of Automated Labour

Will machines finally replace our jobs? If so, how will wealth be generated and distributed in an increasingly work-less future? And what will become of the people who no longer are required to work? These questions feature prominently in contemporary discussions about the impact of automation on human work. Our interdisciplinary conference aims to challenge some of the assumptions underlying this debate. Bringing together philosophers, historians and scholars from the social sciences, we will explore the long and contested history of mechanized and automated labour. This will help us to better understand how mechanization in the past differs from automation in the present, and how workers and employees have responded to technological advancement and machine-driven rationalization over the course of the past two centuries.

We attempt to scrutinize the commonly held belief that we currently experience an unprecedented transformation radically changing how our work is organized, managed, assessed, and controlled. By facilitating an exchange between past, present, and future perspectives, our international conference will make an important contribution not only to the research on historical and contemporary work, but also to public debates about the future of work.

Call for papers

Please send proposals of no more than 400 words to either [email protected] or [email protected]. Please include a short bio of no more than 100 words.

Find the full details of the Call for papers uploaded on the event's website. 

The deadline is 31 December 2022. We will get back to you by mid-January 2023.

(Please note that the conference takes place in Aarhus, not Aalborg - it is a mistake of the PhilEvents website).