The Second Machine Age

When does a growing economy lead to fewer jobs? Today and the near future, according to Bohyun Kim’s closing keynote “Libraries Meet the Second Machine Age.” Kim’s presentation was intriguing, wide-ranging, and challenging. (And it began in a wonderfully surreal way with an unintroduced or commented upon video about a wearable robot that feeds tomatoes to runners (pictured to the right)). I don’t trust myself to succinctly reproduce the highlights in narrative form, so here are some bullet points:

• The Second Machine Age is represented by technical innovation (and automation) leading to economic growth and greater productivity, but with accompanying stagnant or decreasing levels of employment and wages.
• Simple labor is increasingly eliminated (and replaced with machines), and there is more demand for jobs that work at the interplay of human and machine (either programming or working collaboratively with technology).
• This potentially leads to a thinning middle class and diminished upward mobility.
• We may also be embarking on a new guilded age where the best opportunities for real economic gain come from capital investment as opposed to earnings from work.
• Libraries continue to help bridge gap between technology haves and have-nots.
• Educational systems, including libraries, are increasingly positioning themselves to respond to demands of the job market and to provide competency-based education.
• Makerspaces in libraries, for example, are often positioned as a way to deliver what the workforce wants. But makers are privileged in terms of access to materials, time to play and learn, and intrinsic knowledge of technology.
• The example of makerspace as a tool for workforce development also puts the responsibility and risk on the worker, rather than the employer, to continually evolve.
• We, as workers, are often willing to exploit ourselves and tie ourselves to work in unreasonable ways.
• Makerspaces are examples of neo-liberalism, similar to other technology in the Second Machine Age that ignores systemic inequality and attempts to provide an unsustainable case-by-case solution to systemic problems.
• Many technological innovations in the Second Machine Age seem to pursue economic growth and efficiency for its own sake, with little regulation and oversight.
• The sharing economy opens regulatory holes and brings the harsh logic of capitalism into “sharing.”
• The fundamental goal of education should be to “alter the ground upon which life is lived,” not to promote efficiency and economic growth for its own sake.
• Does the educational obsession with outcomes and return on investment position knowledge as a commodity? Where do libraries stand in that environment?
• The ACRL Framework reflects an ambitious goal for the types of learning libraries should promote, which is beyond the expectations of many faculty members and other library stakeholders.
• Libraries should refocus around social responsibility and meaningful community contribution, in addition to information sharing.
• Libraries can play a pivotal role in social justice.

Did you attend this presentation? Have you grappled with these ideas? Where do you think libraries fit into the context Kim builds? Share your thoughts in the comments below. (I’m also not super clear on the idea of Makerspaces as neo-liberal or the specific role that libraries might play in social justice – if you have any insights, please share!) If it takes you a moment to digest all of this, you’re in good company. The room following Kim’s speech was a tad awestruck. Twitter user @612to651 correctly noted that: “I think @bohyunkim could justifiably do a mic drop and walk off the stage after this keynote.” You can watch a recording of the session via the conference website: “Libraries Meet the Second Machine Age.”