How will emerging technologies change the workforce as we step into a more and more automated, and robot-assisted future? This reading list doesn’t just include abstract and philosophical notions about technology. The following books will impact your present, and describe tangible ideas and situations. Especially in these fast-paced times, focusing only on the present means that you’re lagging behind. Add these books to your reading list to prepare yourself for anything that the future can throw at you.

21 Lessons for the 21^st Century by Yuval Noah Harari

After the bestselling Sapiens, professor Harari keeps stunning us with innovative ideas compressed in essays that make them approachable. This book is a collection of essays on all kinds of current topics, such as big data and fake news. Throughout, he uses humans as data processing algorithms and importance of story-telling as recurring themes. Managers dealing with safety are always finding that link between data, technology, and the very real impact it has on people. The human factor is key in the HSE field, and that’s also where Harari shines.

Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress by Steven Pinker

The fact that we’re overwhelmed with data from all over the world may make it seem like we’re living in a dangerous and terrible time, but Pinker continues to make the case for the opposite; there has been no time like the present and even though we’re faced with massive problems, the solutions lie in reason and science. On the work floor, we already know that measurable data make all the difference to create a safer, and happier workplace, and this book argues the same approach for problem-solving and our attitude towards the future. A fresh and positive view!

Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence by Max Tegmark

This book asks the questions that worried workers everywhere ask today: how will the future affect my current job? Will I be replaced? What do I tell my children to study so they can have a good career? And how do I protect myself from AI, that new and unknowable thing? Tegmark asks those questions and gives you the tools to grasp your own future, and gives you a solid foundation if this is one of your first entry-points into the abstract world of AI and how it will affect us.

The Big Nine: How the Tech Titans and Their Thinking Machines Could Warp Humanity by Amy Webb

Although the title sounds scary, you’re not going to find fear-mongering here. Fundamentally, AI is a force of good, and that is the idea that stands firm throughout Webb’s work. Webb gives an overview of the effects the huge tech giants have, and of the history of AI as a whole. She also presents different scenario’s of how AI might develop over the next 30 years. And she doesn’t just stick to the speculative, she also proposes some plans of action to protect ourselves from the inevitable problems that AI (especially AGI, artificial general intelligence) will cause. A must read!

The Robots Are Coming! The Future of Jobs in the Age of Automation by Andrés Oppenheimer

The title says it all, this book deals with the future job market when we’ll all lose our jobs because of the robots. But we won’t, not really. Oppenheimer compares a bleak to a more optimistic idea of the future, and describes how we won’t all be unemployed, but the job market surely won’t look the same. His ideas make the future more imaginable.

Have you read any of these books, if so, what did you think? Which book is on top of your reading list? Let us know, and make sure to subscribe for more news in the world of technology and manufacturing.