# Technological Unemployment ## Definition Technological unemployment is displacement of paid human work by technical systems that perform tasks previously assigned to people. The term describes a possible labor-market effect of automation; it does not imply that all work disappears or that productivity gains are distributed evenly. ## Relationships - **Mechanism:** [[wiki/Automation|Automation]] can raise productivity while changing the demand for particular human tasks. - **Historical forecast:** [[wiki/The Coming Technological Singularity|Vernor Vinge’s 1993 essay]] anticipated productive work concentrating in a smaller fraction of humanity and described technological unemployment as a possible consequence of the Singularity. - **Corpus routes:** [[collections/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]] and [[articles/Digital Darwinism and the Invisible World of Machine Evolution|Digital Darwinism and the Invisible World of Machine Evolution]] distinguish labor displacement from the separate technical criteria for machine evolution. ## Simple Reminders, Quotations, and Thoughts From [[wiki/The Coming Technological Singularity|The Coming Technological Singularity]]: Vinge’s 1993 forecast connects concentrated productivity with labor displacement. > "The work that is truly productive is the domain of a steadily smaller and more elite fraction of humanity. In the coming of the Singularity, we are seeing the predictions of true technological unemployment finally come true." > **— Vernor Vinge**, *1993, “The Coming Technological Singularity,” VISION-21 Symposium* [[reminders/Civilization/The Singularity Could Bring Technological Unemployment by Vernor Vinge|The Singularity Could Bring Technological Unemployment by Vernor Vinge]]