New technologies have always provoked panic about workers being replaced by machines. In the past, such fears have been misplaced, and many economists maintain that they remain so today. Yet in his recent book, A World Without Work: Technology, Automation and How We Should Respond, Daniel Susskind shows why this time really is different. Increasingly, tasks that used to be beyond the capability of computers – from diagnosing illnesses to drafting legal contracts – are now within their reach.   

Join us to discuss the future of work in the age of Covid-19. Does a world with less well-paid work lie ahead? Will the pandemic accelerate or slow the threat of automation? How should we respond to the challenge of technological change, and what can we learn from our ongoing response to the current pandemic?

Panel:

• Daniel Susskind, Fellow in Economics at Balliol College, Oxford University, and Visiting Professor at the Policy Institute and Department of Political Economy, King's College London
  
  
• Elisabeth Reynolds, Executive Director of the MIT Industrial Performance Center and the MIT Taskforce on the Work of the Future
  
  
• Alec Ross, former Senior Advisor for Innovation to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Visiting Professor at the Policy Institute (chair)

The panel will be welcomed by Professor Bobby Duffy, Director of the Policy Institute.