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The Future of Automation of Work is in the Past

As there has recently been much debate about the increasing automation of work, this event invites researchers, entrepreneurs, civil servants, or anyone interested in automation, algorithmic governance, and artificial intelligence to discuss the following question: How can we make sense of the automation of work?

Time: Wed 2025-10-15 14.00 - 15.30

Location: Digital Futures hub, Osquars Backe 5, floor 2 at KTH main campus

Language: English

Participating: Incl. Lina Rahm, Kalle Eriksson, Michaela Padden, Erik Gandini

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To engage with this question, we will turn our attention to the past to make explicit historical political ideas of automation that presently shape the future of work in Sweden. 

We are particularly interested in discussing automation, not as “merely a technological inevitability but a complex, politically charged arena where different, if often latent, visions of the future contend” (Eriksson, 2024). Taking the example of surveillance practices at work, this conversation is interested in discussing “how practices once considered unacceptable are increasingly portrayed as neutral, or even positive” (Padden, 2023). 

Come and join us in this conversation to reflect on historical loops and dead ends with automation of work throughout time while discussing imaginaries of modernity and progress, power, and politics (Rahm, 2023).

Speakers:

  • Kalle Eriksson, Postdoc Fellow, Department of Sociology / DIGSUM, Umeå University. 
  • Michaela Padden, Lecturer, Department of Political Science, Karlstad University. 
  • Erik Gandini, Professor of Documentary Film at Stockholm University of the Arts. Director of the film AFTER WORK.

Moderator: Teresa Cerratto Pargman, Professor of Human-computer interaction at the Dept. of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm University.

The event is in collaboration with:

  • Lina Rahm, Associate Professor, History of Media and Environment at KTH – member of the Digital Future working group Rich and Healthy Life. 
  • Jörgen Behrendtz, Professor, Department of Media Studies at Stockholm University

The event is part of the cross-projects funded by the WASP-HS programme. More info here

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