
Quote of the day by pioneer of cybernetics Norbert Wiener: 'The automated machine is the economic equivalent of slave labour' — foreshadowing the displacement of human labor in the years to come
THE SO WHAT
Wiener’s framing is a reminder that automation has always been about labor economics, not magic. If you’re deploying AI or robotics, model the labor-displacement and wage-pressure effects explicitly now—before regulators and workers do it for you.
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