IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/aim/wpaimx/2313.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Social Implications of Technological Disruptions: A Transdisciplinary Cybernetics Science and Occupational Science Perspective

Author

Abstract

In this article we argue that the disruptive social implications of skill-replacing technological innovations are determined neither by human characteristics, such as "low skills" or "low cognition," nor by task characteristics, such as "routine," as it is typically assumed in the predominant economics and management science literature, but by the cybernetic characteristics of the innovations. We also propose that the negative effects of technological disruptions on human well-being cannot be fully understood without the use of a transdisciplinary approach involving cybernetics science and occupational science, and that it is urgent that policymakers look beyond their narrow effects on productivity and on the labor force, and consider instead the complexity of the interactions between cybernetic technologies and meaningful human occupations. We offer as an example the case of the fast adoption of online food delivery services and of remote work technologies during the COVID-19 pandemic. Ethical implications are derived from the arguments.

Suggested Citation

  • Pedro H. Albuquerque & Sophie Albuquerque, 2023. "Social Implications of Technological Disruptions: A Transdisciplinary Cybernetics Science and Occupational Science Perspective," AMSE Working Papers 2313, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
    • Handle: RePEc:aim:wpaimx:2313
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.amse-aixmarseille.fr/sites/default/files/working_papers/wp_2023_-_nr_13_0.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Erik Brynjolfsson & John J. Horton & Adam Ozimek & Daniel Rock & Garima Sharma & Hong-Yi TuYe, 2020. "COVID-19 and Remote Work: An Early Look at US Data," NBER Working Papers 27344, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Jacopo Staccioli & Maria Enrica Virgillito, 2020. "The present, past, and future of labor-saving technologies," DISCE - Quaderni del Dipartimento di Politica Economica dipe0013, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).
    3. Alexander Lenger, 2019. "The Rejection of Qualitative Research Methods in Economics," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(4), pages 946-965, October.
    4. Nir Jaimovich & Henry E. Siu, 2020. "Job Polarization and Jobless Recoveries," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(1), pages 129-147, March.
    5. Barry Eichengreen, 2015. "Secular Stagnation: The Long View," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(5), pages 66-70, May.
    6. Cortes, Guido Matias & Jaimovich, Nir & Siu, Henry E., 2017. "Disappearing routine jobs: Who, how, and why?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 69-87.
    7. David H. Autor & Frank Levy & Richard J. Murnane, 2003. "The skill content of recent technological change: an empirical exploration," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Nov.
    8. Chad Syverson, 2011. "What Determines Productivity?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(2), pages 326-365, June.
    9. Anton Korinek, 2023. "Language Models and Cognitive Automation for Economic Research," NBER Working Papers 30957, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Daron Acemoglu & Pascual Restrepo, 2020. "Robots and Jobs: Evidence from US Labor Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(6), pages 2188-2244.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Pedro H. Albuquerque & Kiara S Winans, 2023. "Technological Innovations and Obsolescence: Leveling the Playing Field for Remanufacturing," Working Papers hal-04127754, HAL.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pedro H. Albuquerque & Sophie Albuquerque, 2023. "Framing Cognitive Machines: A Sociotechnical Taxonomy," AMSE Working Papers 2323, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
    2. Chuan, Amanda & Zhang, Weilong, 2023. "Non-college Occupations, Workplace Routinization, and the Gender Gap in College Enrollment," IZA Discussion Papers 16089, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Chuan, A. & Zhang, W., 2021. "Non-College Occupations, Workplace Routinization, and the Gender Gap in College Enrollment," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2177, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    4. Philippe Aghion & Céline Antonin & Simon Bunel, 2019. "Artificial Intelligence, Growth and Employment: The Role of Policy," Economie et Statistique / Economics and Statistics, Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques (INSEE), issue 510-511-5, pages 149-164.
    5. vom Lehn, Christian, 2018. "Understanding the decline in the U.S. labor share: Evidence from occupational tasks," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 191-220.
    6. M. Battisti & M. Del Gatto & A. F. Gravina & C. F. Parmeter, 2021. "Robots versus labor skills: a complementarity/substitutability analysis," Working Paper CRENoS 202104, Centre for North South Economic Research, University of Cagliari and Sassari, Sardinia.
    7. van der Velde, Lucas, 2022. "Phasing out: Routine tasks and retirement," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 784-803.
    8. Hensvik, Lena & Skans, Oskar Nordström, 2023. "The skill-specific impact of past and projected occupational decline," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    9. Carbonero, Francesco & Scicchitano, Sergio, 2021. "Labour and technology at the time of Covid-19. Can artificial intelligence mitigate the need for proximity?," GLO Discussion Paper Series 765, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    10. Cortes, Guido Matias & Jaimovich, Nir & Nekarda, Christopher J. & Siu, Henry E., 2020. "The dynamics of disappearing routine jobs: A flows approach," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    11. G. Jacob Blackwood & Cindy Cunningham & Matthew Dey & Lucia Foster & Cheryl Grim & John C. Haltiwanger & Rachel L. Nesbit & Sabrina Pabilonia & Jay Stewart & Cody Tuttle & Zoltan Wolf, 2023. "Opening the Black Box: Task and Skill Mix and Productivity Dispersion," NBER Chapters, in: Technology, Productivity, and Economic Growth, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Alex Chernoff & Gabriela Galassi, 2023. "Digitalization: Labour Markets," Discussion Papers 2023-16, Bank of Canada.
    13. Fran Stewart & Kathryn Kelley, 2020. "Connecting Hands and Heads: Retooling Engineering Technology for the “Smart†Manufacturing Workplace," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 34(1), pages 31-45, February.
    14. Cortes, Guido Matias & Lerche, Adrian & Schönberg, Uta & Tschopp, Jeanne, 2023. "Technological Change, Firm Heterogeneity and Wage Inequality," IZA Discussion Papers 16070, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Congressional Budget Office, 2018. "CBO’s Projection of Labor Force Participation Rates: Working Paper 2018-04," Working Papers 53616, Congressional Budget Office.
    16. Nir Jaimovich & Henry E. Siu, 2017. "High-Skilled Immigration, STEM Employment, and Nonroutine-Biased Technical Change," NBER Chapters, in: High-Skilled Migration to the United States and Its Economic Consequences, pages 177-204, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Arntz, Melanie & Ivanov, Boris & Pohlan, Laura, 2022. "Regional Structural Change and the Effects of Job Loss," IZA Discussion Papers 15313, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Jaimovich, Nir & Saporta-Eksten, Itay & Siu, Henry & Yedid-Levi, Yaniv, 2021. "The macroeconomics of automation: Data, theory, and policy analysis," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 1-16.
    19. Clément Bosquet & Paul Maarek & Elliot Moiteaux, 2021. "Routine-biased technological change and wages by education level: Occupational downgrading and displacement effects," Working Papers hal-03270715, HAL.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    technological disruptions; technological innovations; cybernetics science; occupational science; labor and nonlabor occupations;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aim:wpaimx:2313. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Gregory Cornu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/amseafr.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.