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Book Cover
E-book
Author Ramirez, J. Jesse, author.

Title Against automation mythologies : business science fiction and the ruse of the robots / J. Jesse Ramirez
Published New York, NY : Routledge, 2021
©2021

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Description 1 online resource (viii, 106 pages)
Contents Introduction: On Technoclasm -- Chapter Overview -- Part I. Business Science Fiction -- Chapter 1. Future Expectations -- Chapter 2. "Harbingers of the Robot Age" -- Chapter 3. The Terminator, or The Automation Fetish -- Part II. Original Automation -- Chapter 4. When Farmers Lost Their "Jobs" -- Chapter 5. Techno-republicanism -- Part III. Disenchanted Objects -- Chapter 6. The Misadventures of Baxter and Sawyer -- Chapter 7. Amazon, or Automated Taylorism -- Chapter 8. Uber is a Science Fiction -- Chapter 9. The Smart Home: Still More Work for Mother -- Chapter 10. Care Robots -- Chapter 11. Watson, Champion of White Jeopardy! -- Conclusion: Reification and Utopia in Automation -- Index
Summary "Inspired by Roland Barthes's practice of "semioclasm" in Mythologies, this book offers a "technoclasm"; a cultural critique of US narratives, discourses, images, and objects that have transformed the politics of automation into statements of fact about the "rise of the robots". Treating automation as an ensemble of technologies and science fictions, this book foregrounds automation's ideologies, exaggerations, failures, and mystifications of the social value of human labor in order to question accepted and prolific automation mythologies. Jesse Ramirez offers a study of automation that recognizes automation as a technosocial project, which uses the tools of cultural studies and history to investigate the narratives and ideologies that often implicitly frame the automation debate, and that concretely and soberly assesses the technologies that have made the headlines. The case studies featured include some of the most widely cited and celebrated automatic technologies, such as the Baxter industrial robot, the self-driving car, and the Watson AI system. An ideal resource for anyone interested in or studying emerging technology and society, automation, Marxian cultural theory, cultural studies, science fiction studies, and the cultural history of technology"-- Provided by publisher
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes "Routledge Focus" -- taken from front cover
Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (Taylor & Francis Group, viewed on October 22, 2020)
Subject Automation -- Social aspects
Robots in literature.
Science fiction.
SOCIAL SCIENCE / Media Studies
Science fiction
Robots in literature
Automation -- Social aspects
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2020031048
ISBN 9781003056089
1003056083
1000169618
9781000169577
100016957X
9781000169539
1000169537
9781000169614