Books like World Without Work by Daniel Susskind

An exploration of how rapidly advancing robotics and automation could reshape the economic system, workforce, and labor market.

Neil Postman warns of the growing dominance of technology—its impact on politics, intellect, religion, history, privacy, and truth—in his critical examination of the late twentieth‑century “Technopoly.”

Nicholas Carr examines how automation—from factory robots to self‑driving cars—shapes our work and leisure, revealing the hidden costs of pervasive software control and the way screen‑centric focus can leave us disengaged.

Matt Richtel examines the deadly rise of distracted driving, using a 2006 Utah crash that killed two rocket scientists to explore how cell‑phone use divides attention, affects brain function, and reshapes society.

"Springing from the febrile mind of mathematician Norbert Wiener amid the devastation of World War II, the cybernetic vision underpinned a host of seductive myths about the future of machines. This vision would radically transform the postwar world, ushering in sweeping cultural change. From the Cold War's monumental SAGE bomber defense system to enhanced humans, Wiener's scheme turned computers from machines of assured destruction into engines of brilliant utopias. Cybernetics triggered blissful cults, the Whole Earth Catalog, and feminist manifestos, just as it fueled martial gizmos and the air force's foray into virtual space. As Rid shows, Cybernetics proved a powerful tool for two competing factions-- those who sought to make a better world and those who sought to control the one at hand. In the Bay Area, techno-libertarians embraced networked machines as the portal to a new electronic frontier: a peaceful, open space of freedom. In Washington, DC, cyberspace provided the perfect theater for dominance and war. Meanwhile the future arrived secretly in 1996, with Moonlight Maze, dawn of a new age of digital state-on-state espionage. That "first cyberwar" ... went on for years-- and indeed has never stopped. In our long-promised cybernetic future, the line between utopia and dystopia continues to be disturbingly thin."--Jacket flap.

This book crystallizes and extends the important work Wiebe Bijker has done in the last decade to found a full-scale theory of sociotechnical change that describes where technologies come from and how societies deal with them. Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs integrates detailed case studies with theoretical generalizations and political analyses to offer a fully rounded treatment both of the relations between technology and society and of the issues involved in sociotechnical change. The stories of the safety bicycle, the first truly synthetic plastic, and the fluorescent light bulb - each a fascinating case study in itself- reflect a cross-section of time periods, engineering and scientific disciplines, and economic, social, and political cultures. The bicycle story explores such issues as the role of changing gender relationships in shaping a technology; the Bakelite story examines the ways in which social factors intrude even in cases of seemingly pure chemistry and entrepreneurship; and the fluorescent bulb story offers insights into the ways in which political and economic relationships can affect the form of a technology. Bijker's method is to use these case studies to suggest theoretical concepts that serve as building blocks in a more and more inclusive theory, which is then tested against further case studies. His main concern is to create a basis for studies of science, technology, and social change that uncovers the social roots of technology, making it amenable to democratic politics.

Sherry Turkle explores how technology reshapes empathy and human connection, drawing on her work with psychologists, women in tech, and social insights.