One of the things I hear the most in the many conversations I have on tech and society today is that computers will take jobs or that man will be replaced by machine. It is a reasonable and interesting question, but I think, ultimately wrong. I tried to collect a few thoughts about that in a small essay here for reference. The question interests me for several reasons – not least because I think that it is partly a design question rather than something driven by technological determinism. This in itself is a belief that could be challenged on a number of fronts, but I think there is a robust defense for it. The idea that technology has to develop in the direction of substitution is simply not true if we look at all existing systems. Granted: when we can automate not just a task but cognition generally this will be challenged, but strong reasons remain to believe that we will not automate fully. So, more of this later. (Image: Robin Zebrowski)