ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 focuses on forces that have been responsible for the rise of automation, job displacements, decreasing real minimum wages, reduced worker protections, the declining power of unions, increased outsourcing and offshoring as technology has become a more capable and cost-effective substitute for human labour. The questions posed in this chapter are: How has automation changed the skill requirements and the nature of jobs over time? How has “fissuring” transformed the workplace and exacerbated income inequalities? What are the implications of these changes on urbanization, sectoral, and spatial disparities? What are the future policy implications of these changes for reskilling the workforce and planning for more resilient cities? These questions become more relevant in the post-COVID recovery phase which is likely to see an impetus to humanoid robots, drone technology, medical, assistive, and collaborative robots as technology flexibly integrates with human operators. We conclude that humans and machines are fungible only to an extent if one views automation as replacing, augmenting, and advancing simple, repetitive tasks because it is in the realm of human knowledge where humans have a clear comparative advantage over machines. Digital technologies do have tremendous potential to lower operating costs, increase efficiencies and productivities wherever deployed. However, Industry 4.0 is unlikely to give rise to future algorithmic workplaces devoid of humans.
