Better Than Human Kevin Kelly Summary

Industrial Takeover

In Better than Human, Kevin Kelly the author, is trying to establish an understanding that technology is going to eventually take over the majority of human task jobs. Kelly does not think that this is something that people should fear. He wants people to embrace the change and work with the machines that will be taking over their current positions. The fact that new jobs will open because of these new machines is supposed to be comforting according to Kelly. He uses the Industrial Revolution as an example of this happening to farmers. His argument is; with how many farmers were put out of work because of the Industrial Revolution how come more people were not unemployed even after 70 percent of their farming jobs have been taken over by machines? Kelly states that “70 percent of today’s occupations will likewise be replaced by automation.” (300) This supporting his idea, that new machines and technologies open up the same amount if not more jobs than they take away.

With technologies changing daily, Kelly’s idea is that working people have to be open minded to what is to come in the future. The thinking of many people is we are so advanced already, they don’t see how much more could change. He wants people to open up their minds and understand that the machines that are going to be introduced to the workforce are going to

He states that “displaced workers did not sit idle. Instead automation created hundreds of millions of jobs in entirely new fields.” (299) To this I cannot disagree, the very beginning of automation created many jobs for former farm workers. I need to point out though that today the people losing their jobs to machines are no longer famers, they are laborers who are already working alongside machines. Machines that already took the job of three, four, or maybe even ten people when it came into