A World Without Work

What if, in the future, we run out not of work – but of paid work?

Since the beginning of industrialisation, technological progress has been accompanied by the same concern: machines could make people redundant. So far, upheavals have repeatedly been followed by new activities. This is precisely why many economists are sceptical about the idea of permanent technological unemployment.

In A World Without Work Daniel Susskind poses the uncomfortable counter-question: What if this time we cannot rely on enough new human work emerging for every activity that is automated?

He does not claim that all jobs will disappear tomorrow. His book explores a longer-term possibility: artificial intelligence and other technologies could take over more and more tasks, gradually reducing the share of human paid work.

1. Machines do not need to think like us to perform tasks better

A common idea is that as long as machines lack genuine human intelligence, many occupations will remain safe. Susskind considers this assumption too reassuring.

Technical systems do not need to solve a task in the same way as people. What matters is whether they deliver a sufficiently good result. Systems can already take over tasks once considered highly knowledge-intensive – such as certain forms of medical analysis, translation, pattern recognition, or drafting and checking texts.

This shifts the focus from the occupation to the task. An occupation does not have to disappear entirely for technology to change large parts of it. Some tasks are automated, others become more important, and new responsibilities emerge.

This is precisely why our JobRadar 2040 examines more than new job titles. We ask where human judgement, relationships, translation, legitimacy and responsibility remain important even in more automated systems.

2. Less paid work would not automatically mean less prosperity

Here lies one of the book's most interesting paradoxes. If machines can produce more and more, a society could become materially wealthier – while fewer people gain access to that wealth through conventional paid work.

Technological unemployment would then be more than a problem of inadequate qualifications. It would become a question of distribution: Who owns productive technologies? Who receives income? Who benefits from rising productivity? And how much economic and political power concentrates among those who control these systems?

Susskind therefore looks beyond further training. He also discusses the fair distribution of technological prosperity and the growing power of large technology companies.

This distinction matters for Future Skills. Better abilities can improve a person's chances of finding interesting work. But they do not guarantee that an economy will provide enough paid work for everyone in the long term.

3. When work diminishes, more than the payslip disappears

At this point, A World Without Work becomes particularly relevant to the Future Skills Institut.

For many people, paid work is far more than a way to earn money. It can provide recognition and status, create social connections and offer a sense of purpose, identity and meaning. Susskind therefore makes clear that even if a society could solve the income problem, the question would remain of how people experience meaning and participation in society when work is no longer at the centre of their lives.

Our work on Lebensfähig 2040 starts precisely here and broadens the perspective to everyday life: work often also structures time, relationships, development and the feeling of being needed. If this support weakens, a good life needs other sustainable sources.

These may include relationships, community, caring, learning, physical activity, practical pursuits, volunteering or tasks we choose ourselves. Not as a romantic substitute for missing income – material security remains fundamental – but as additional foundations for life.

4. Future Skills remain important – but for a broader reason

A possible world with less work does not make Future Skills unnecessary. Quite the opposite. But their purpose changes.

We need learning ability, technological competence and adaptability to remain connected wherever new work emerges. We need judgement and responsibility wherever people must continue to make decisions.

But we might also need those same abilities to shape our lives beyond a stable employment history : creating our own structure, nurturing relationships, taking on new roles, dealing with uncertainty and finding meaning beyond professional status alone.

For the Future Skills Institut, two research questions therefore belong together: What new work might emerge? And: What sustains a good life when work provides less support?

What we take from this

A World Without Work does not predict that paid work will disappear. The long-term development of technology, labour markets, politics and institutions remains open – and the extent to which AI will actually displace human work is debated in research and society.

But the book offers a valuable stress test for how we think today.

Perhaps it is not enough to prepare people solely for the question: How do I remain employable?

We should also ask:

How do I remain capable of living well if employment one day becomes less of a given?

What three things does my work give me today besides income – and where else in my life could those things emerge?

Context: This 3-Minute Insight summarises selected arguments from Daniel Susskind's book in our own words and connects them with the Future Skills Institut's research questions. A World Without Work is an economic and societal analysis of possible long-term consequences of technological progress – not a prediction that paid work will actually disappear. This article does not replace reading the original.

Source: Daniel Susskind (2020): A World Without Work: Technology, Automation, and How We Should Respond. Allen Lane / Penguin. Further information: Official book website ↗ · Oxford Martin lecture on the book ↗