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  • 2020
  • Book

Work, Mate, Marry, Love: How Machines Shape Our Human Destiny

By: Debora L. Spar
  • Format:Print
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Abstract

Covering a time frame that ranges from 8000 BC to the present, and drawing upon both Marxist and feminist theories, the book argues that nearly all the decisions we make in our most intimate lives—whom to marry, how to have children, how to have sex, how to think about love and romance and families—are driven, and always have been driven by technology. We think we’re behaving as fully autonomous individuals; we think we’re pushing or participating in social change; but we’re actually just being swept up in, and responding to, much broader shifts in technology. Or to what Marx and his kin would have termed “the means of production.”

As current technologies—particularly the technologies of assisted reproduction, robotics, and artificial intelligence—continue to evolve, they will drive fundamental changes in how we structure our families and our lives.

Keywords

Innovation; Family; Women; Reproduction; Artificial Intelligence; Robots; Gender; Demography; History; Innovation and Invention; Relationships; Society; Information Technology; AI and Machine Learning; Biotechnology Industry; Computer Industry; Health Industry; Information Technology Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Technology Industry; Africa; Asia; Europe; Latin America; North and Central America

Citation

Spar, Debora L. Work, Mate, Marry, Love: How Machines Shape Our Human Destiny. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020.
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About The Author

Debora L. Spar

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More from the Author

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    Afrigen Biologics: Vaccines for the Global South

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    Northvolt: Building Batteries to Fight Climate Change

    By: Debora L. Spar, Georgios Serafeim and Julia Comeau
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    The Social Purpose of the Firm

    By: Debora L. Spar and Julia Comeau
More from the Author
  • Afrigen Biologics: Vaccines for the Global South By: Debora L. Spar and Julia Comeau
  • Northvolt: Building Batteries to Fight Climate Change By: Debora L. Spar, Georgios Serafeim and Julia Comeau
  • The Social Purpose of the Firm By: Debora L. Spar and Julia Comeau
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