The World Technology Network (www.WTN.net), a community of the world’s most innovative individuals and organizations in science, technology, and related fields, is launching the first World Summit on Technological Unemployment on September 29, 2015, at the Time Life Conference Center in New York City.
Accelerating technological unemployment will likely be one of the most challenging societal issues in the 21st Century. Never before in history are so many industries being simultaneously upended by new technologies. Though “creative destruction,” in which lost jobs are replaced with new ones, will be a factor, our newest technologies have the clear potential to eliminate many more jobs than we create. With technology advancing at a geometric pace, robotics, artificial intelligence, 3D-printing, and other innovations with enormous disruptive potential will soon hit the mainstream. Billions of people worldwide are currently employed in industries that will likely be affected—and billions of new entrants to the workforce will need jobs. – See more at: http://www.wtn.net/technological-unemployment-summit#sthash.twjlPE3u.dpuf
The Luddites were textile workers and weavers from the first British Industrial Revolution circa 1811-1816, who protested against technologies that automated their industry. The powered looms and stocking frames threatened to replace them with less-skilled, low-wage laborers, leaving them without a livelihood.