Should We Automate Socioemotional Work?

Are jobs requiring high levels of human interaction worth preserving in the age of automation? Can we design machines to achieve something profound – the mutual recognition that occurs when human beings truly "see" each other? CASBS faculty fellow Mitchell Stevens explores these questions with Allison Pugh, author of the 2024 book The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World. Pugh launched work on the book as a 2016-17 CASBS fellow.

ALLISON PUGH
 website | Google Scholar page | Interview with Allison Pugh on building a society of connection (CASBS in partnership with Public Books) |

Princeton University Press page for The Last Human Job
 

MITCHELL STEVENS
Stanford GSE faculty page |  Stanford profile |  CASBS page | Google Scholar page |
 

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University

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Human Centered
Producer: Mike Gaetani | Audio engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel |