I was nervous as I stood up in front of the audience of scientists and engineers. I’d been invited to give a keynote at this conference, but I was not sure whether many of them would be interested in my topic: generative artificial intelligence and the future of work. It seemed to have snowed indoors...
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In AD 52, the Apostle Paul wrote a letter, either the first or second New Testament epistle ever written, to a small church in the city of Thessalonica, a church he had started not long before. This church was planted in a highly cosmopolitan, affluent, powerful city where Christians struggled with the same kinds of...
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The fact that we celebrate the American worker by not working tells us something about our relationship with work — it is very complicated. Even Labor Day itself has an interesting background. When President Grover Cleveland signed the law that made Labor Day an official national holiday in 1894, he did so against a backdrop...
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In 2019, Derek Thompson suggested in the Atlantic that work for college-educated Americans had become workism, “the most potent of new religions competing for congregants.” He noted, “No large country in the world as productive as the United States averages more hours of work a year. And the gap between the U.S. and other countries is...
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Barbie Dreamhouse recently celebrated 62 years of existence.[1] The first house included a black and white TV box, an uneven checkered rug, and a painful-looking plaid couch. Dreamhouse Toys began with a modest fantasy. Yet, few artifacts outline the recent history of commoditization as thoroughly as the Barbie Dreamhouse. Each decade fetched a brighter idea...
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Karioshi suggests that the necessity of rest can be a matter of life and death. This Japanese word essentially translates as “death from overwork,” a tragically regular phenomenon in Japan in which men and women die, whether of natural causes or suicide, because of too much work and no rest. Even though this concept is...
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