ABSTRACT
Anxiety (and at times panic) about work is nothing new and we are currently living through the latest phase of intense concern over work – and powerful questions abound. Where are the jobs? Will the machines replace us? Will we be paid enough? What skills matter? By definition, the Digital Renaissance of Work applies to those with work … but what about the availability of work itself? The Second Machine Age by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee caused a media storm in early 2014 by proposing the increasingly feasible prospect and fear that the robots will steal our jobs.2 With good reason, since an Oxford University study from 2013 predicts that 47 per cent of all jobs may end up being automated within the next 20 years, and this includes knowledge fields such as legal work, accounting, real estate agency and technical writing.3
