Description
In the Age of the Smart Machine is about a new watershed in human history. As advanced information technology diffuses across the economic landscape, it transforms the nature of work and presents us with a fateful choice. Professor Zuboff demonstrates that computers may merely further automate blue and white-collar jobs, achieving unprecedented speed and consistency, robbing workers of whatever skill and gratification they may retain, and increasing the impersonality and remoteness of management. That same technology, however, may "informate," empowering ordinary working people with overall knowledge of the production process, making them capable of critical and collaborative judgments about production and distribution. As these new opportunities unfold, the function of management and the conventions of work organization are transfigured. Ironically, Zuboff argues, if those in command choose to automate rather than "informate," many of the commercial advantages of computer- guided administration, production, and distribution will be lost.
In-depth interviews over several years with workers and managers in a variety of economic settings-high-tech paper-making plants, bank and insurance offices, a telecommunications enterprise, and a pharmaceutical manufacturer- evoke the wrenching sense of disorientation that follows in the wake of the "smart machine."
