Aaron Benanav

Paris Marx is joined by Aaron Benanav to discuss OpenAI’s claims that generative AI will take our jobs, how previous periods of automation hype haven’t resulted in mass job loss, and why we need to ensure it doesn’t further empower employers. Aaron Benanav is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Maxwell School at Syracuse University and the author of Automation and the Future of Work. Follow Aaron on Twitter at @abenanav.Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.The podcast is produced by Eric Wickham and part of the Harbinger Media Network. Also mentioned in this episode:Aaron wrote about why chatbots won’t take your job for the New Statesman.Microsoft is rolling out generative AI in its enterprise software services and its Azure platform.The Writers Guild is proposing contract language on AI in scriptwriting to ensure writers still get the credit.Support the show

Science fiction has traditionally depicted a robot takeover as a conscious bid for global domination by our mechanical offspring. From The Terminator to The Matrix, we’ve been invited to picture a war to the death between man and machine. More recently however, figures like Elon Musk have spoken about the rise of the robots as a more insidious threat to humanity; the machines may bear us no ill will, but they’ll cast us on the scrap heap of technological unemployment anyway.Aaron Benanav, author of Automation and the Future of Work, joins Long Reads to discuss what this conventional wisdom around technology and jobs gets wrong—and what a realistic path to a post-scarcity world might look like.Long Reads is a Jacobin podcast looking in-depth at political topics and thinkers, both contemporary and historical, with the magazine’s longform writers. Hosted by Features Editor Daniel Finn. Produced by Conor Gillies, music by Knxwledge.

Beverley Best and Aaron Benanav discuss AI, surplus population, and the labor theory of value. They explore Marx's critique of capitalism, the impact of automation on labor, and the historical fears of job loss. The conversation delves into the intersection of capitalism, technology, and social transformation, emphasizing the need for collective action to create a more equitable future.