In the Age of the Smart Machine

Zuboff, Shoshanda. In the Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of Work and Power. New York: Basic Books, 1988.

Zuboff discusses the idea of a workforce coping with technology. Zuboff focuses on a paper mill and its employees. The employees of the mill express their concern for the loss of their jobs. The fear of what may come is instilled in the employees. The mill was going through a complete modernization, implementing technology the employees had never seen. The employees feared not only for their jobs but for society as a whole. The swift introduction to this new technology made the employees feel as though the world as they knew it would rapidly become unrecognizable. Many of the workers expressed concern about becoming obsolete. The fear was that the training needed to change their ways would be more time consuming and expensive than the training of new, more technologically advanced people.
This idea that technology will take over our world, leaving no room for humans, is absurd. I realize it is hard to embrace the new. I realize too that in 1988 this stuff was still something out of, well, 1984. The truth is, technology has been around forever. Internet technology is brand new, computer technology is relatively new, but technology itself.... When the cotton gin was invented for example; people lost the job of picking cotton. I am sure many people felt displaced by this invention, but boy did it help advance this country. The industrial revolution made this country what it is today. We have been coping with and adapting to new technology for centuries. Charles Darwin gave us the idea of survival of the fittest. Evolution weeding out the weak, unnecessary elements of humanity, I don't think he meant Humans becoming obsolete, but maybe humans unwilling to adapt!