Willingly To The Slaughter We Go

The most powerful people in technology have described the world they intend to build. First, artificial intelligence takes the work done with the mind - legal, accounting, graphic design, writing, the whole white-collar desk. Then robotics takes the work done with the body. Warehouses. Factories. Trucks. Kitchens. Eldercare rooms. Every place a body still shows up to work. In offices right now, employees are being recorded at their own desks so the software can learn to do their jobs next. None of this is a leak. It is a plan, stated in plain sight.

In Willingly to the Slaughter We Go, James D. Steele takes the architects at their word and asks the question none of them will answer: in a world of eight billion people already scrambling for the work they have, why are we racing to replace ourselves - and why is the white-collar knowledge work we have always assumed the safest bet going first?

Steele follows both sides of the machine - the small circle of technologists and political operatives building it, and the copywriters, analysts, associates, and auditors it is built to replace. What he finds is not a conspiracy. It is something colder: an efficiency no one has to choose, because the market chooses it for them.