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Curriculum Automation, AI & the Future of Work

Automation, AI & the Future of Work

What automation and artificial intelligence actually mean for jobs, wages and the skills worth building next.

  1. What Automation Actually Means for Jobs The difference between automating a task and automating a whole job - and why that distinction shapes almost everything else in this module. 📄 Read-aloud
  2. Which Jobs Are Most at Risk - and Which Aren't The real factors that determine how exposed a job is to automation, beyond just the industry it's in. 📄 Read-aloud
  3. Reskilling: Preparing for a Changing Labor Market How workers and economies adapt when the skills a job requires shift faster than in the past. 📄 Read-aloud
  4. The Productivity Paradox Why new technology doesn't always show up right away in the economic statistics that are supposed to measure it. 📄 Read-aloud
  5. Automation, AI & the Future of Work: Checkpoint 1 Covers what automation actually changes, which jobs are most exposed, reskilling, and the productivity paradox. 5 questions
  6. Universal Basic Income: The Debate The case for and against giving everyone a regular, unconditional cash payment - and why automation has revived interest in the idea. 📄 Read-aloud
  7. How AI Is Changing Hiring and Pay How employers increasingly use AI in recruiting and compensation decisions - and what that means for job seekers and workers. 📄 Read-aloud
  8. The Gig Economy Meets Automation How algorithmic management shapes gig work day to day, and what that means for workers who don't have a traditional employer. 📄 Read-aloud
  9. Historical Parallels: Past Waves of Technological Disruption What earlier technological revolutions - from the printing press to the assembly line - can teach us about how automation actually plays out over time. 📄 Read-aloud
  10. Automation, AI & the Future of Work: Checkpoint 2 Covers universal basic income, AI in hiring and pay, algorithmic management in gig work, and lessons from past technological disruptions. 5 questions
  11. The Economics of AI Training Costs and Compute Why building a large AI model costs so much, and why that cost shapes which companies can even attempt it. 📄 Read-aloud
  12. Skill-Biased Technological Change and Wage Inequality Why new technology tends to raise pay for some workers while leaving others behind, and what that does to the overall wage gap. 📄 Read-aloud
  13. Capital vs. Labor: Who Captures the Gains From Automation When a machine replaces a worker, the value that worker used to earn doesn't vanish - it goes somewhere else. This lesson looks at where. 📄 Read-aloud
  14. Automation and the 'Lump of Labor' Fallacy Why the idea that there's only a fixed amount of work to go around is one of the most persistent misconceptions in economics. 📄 Read-aloud
  15. Automation in the Warehouse and Logistics Industry How robots and software transformed warehouse work, and why full automation is harder to reach than it looks. 📄 Read-aloud
  16. The Four-Day Workweek Debate Why rising productivity has revived the century-old argument for working fewer days without losing pay. 📄 Read-aloud
  17. AI and the Economics of Creative Work Why generative AI is reshaping creative industries differently than earlier automation reshaped factory work. 📄 Read-aloud
  18. Retraining Programs: Do They Actually Work? What the evidence says about government and employer job retraining programs meant to help displaced workers. 📄 Read-aloud
  19. Generative AI and White-Collar Work How AI systems that write, code and analyse are changing office jobs, which tasks are most exposed, and what early studies show. 📄 Read-aloud
  20. Robot Taxes: The Debate Whether governments should tax automation to slow job losses or fund support for workers, and why most economists are sceptical. 📄 Read-aloud
  21. AI and Productivity: What the Evidence Shows So Far What studies of AI in real workplaces have found about productivity, why economy-wide effects take time, and the range of forecasts. 📄 Read-aloud
  22. Algorithmic Management: When Software Is the Boss How apps and algorithms assign tasks, set pay and monitor workers in delivery, warehouses and offices, and the debates this raises. 📄 Read-aloud

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