The first lecture, entitled The Future of Work, of the Humans and Machines lecture series explores the impact of tools and machines on the world of work. The following questions dominate today’s debate. Will human job-holders be entirely replaced by machines or only partly replaced? Will humans want to reduce their hours of work or consume more? Do machines make humans more intelligent or more stupid? What social arrangements best ensure that the fruits of productivity gains are fairly distributed? Most important of all: what account should the drive to optimise production take of the moral value of work?
LECTURE SERIES BY ROBERT SKIDELSKY, Emeritus professor, Warwick University, UK
- The Future of Work | APRIL 19, 6:00 p.m. | AUDITORIUM
- The Quest for Perfectibility | APRIL 24, 6:00 p.m. | AUDITORIUM
- Transhumanism | MAY 3, 6:00 p.m. | AUDITORIUM
- Extreme Events | MAY 10, 6:00 p.m. | AUDITORIUM
Robert Skidelsky is emeritus professor of political economy at Warwick University. His three-volume biography of John Maynard Keynes (1983,1992, 2000) won five prizes and his book on the financial crisis – Keynes: The Return of the Master – was published in September 2010. He was made a member of the House of Lords in 1991 (he sits on the crossbenches) and elected a fellow of the British Academy in 1994.
Recently, he has written and filmed a series of lectures on the History and Philosophy of Economics which is available as an open online course in partnership with the Institute for New Economic Thinking.
His most recent publications include Money and Government (2018), What’s Wrong with Economics?: A Primer for the Perplexed (2020) and Economic Sanctions: A Weapon out of Control? (2022). He is currently working on a book about automation and the future of work.