Watch the Q&A session here: https://youtu.be/v0RoRG2YA-0

Why has automation anxiety – the fear that new technologies cause mass unemployment – proven wrong over the centuries? This lecture explores how technology affects the labour market. While new technologies can substitute for workers, reducing demand for their efforts at certain activities, they can also complement them, increasing demand for them to do activities that haven’t been automated. Historically, people have focused on the former, harmful force and underestimated – or ignored – the latter helpful force. Today, headlines all too often make the same mistake.

This lecture was recorded by Daniel Susskind on the 10th October 2025 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London

Dr Daniel Susskind is a writer and economist. He explores the impact of technology, and particularly AI, on work and society. He is a Research Professor at King’s College London, a Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Ethics in AI at Oxford University, a Digital Fellow at the Stanford Digital Economy Lab, and an Associate Member of the Economics Department at Oxford University.

The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/economics-work

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