BOTS AT WORK MEN WILL LOSE THE MOST JOBS. THAT'S OK.

摘要

ROBOTS ARE COMING for our jobs- but not all of our jobs. They're coming, in ever increasing numbers, for a certain kind of work. For farm and factory labor. For construction. For haulage. In other words, blue-collar jobs traditionally done by men. This is why automation is so much more than an economic problem. It is a cultural problem, an identity problem, and—critically—a gender problem. Millions of men around the world are staring into the lacquered teeth of obsolescence, terrified of losing not only their security but also their source of meaning and dignity in a world that tells them that if they're not rich, they'd better be doing something quintessen-tially manly for money. Otherwise they're about as much use as a wooden coach-and-four on the freeway. There's hope for mankind, but it'll be a hard sell. The way we respond to automation will depend very much on what we decide it means to be a man, or a woman, in the awkward adolescence of the 21st century. Some political rhetoric blames outsourcing and immigration for the decline in "men's work," but automation is a greater threat to these kinds of jobs— and technological progress cannot be stopped at any border. A recent Oxford study predicted that 70 percent of US construction jobs will disappear in the coming decades; 97 percent of those jobs are held by men, and so are 95 percent of the 3.5 million transport and trucking jobs that robots are presently eyeing. That's scary, and it's one reason so many men are expressing their anger and anxiety at home, in the streets, and at the polls.