I · The toolmaking animal

• 1778Boswell, Life of Johnson, entry for 7 April 1778 (Franklin's "tool-making animal"; Johnson's objection). Gutenberg, Hill ed. vol. 3supportsopposes
• 1867Marx, Capital I, ch. 7, "The Labour Process". marxists.orgsupports
• 1876Engels, The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man. marxists.orgsupports
• 1877Kapp, Elements of a Philosophy of Technology (Minnesota, 2018).supports
• 1907Bergson, Creative Evolution, p. 139 (Dover ed.).supports
• 1949/57Oakley, Man the Tool-Maker; "Tools Makyth Man", Antiquity. Cambridgesupports
• 1956Schonland, "Benjamin Franklin: natural philosopher", Wilkins Lecture, Proc. R. Soc. A. Royal Societysupports
• 1958Arendt, The Human Condition, Prologue pp. 4–5; Parts III–IV.supports
• 1958Simondon, On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects (Univocal, 2017).supports
• 1960Washburn, "Tools and Human Evolution", Scientific American 203(3).supports
• 1964Leroi-Gourhan, Gesture and Speech (MIT, 1993). Copple's 2003 appraisalsupports
• 1978Gille (ed.), Histoire des techniques (Pléiade).supports
• 1994Stiegler, Technics and Time, 1: The Fault of Epimetheus (Stanford, 1998).supports
• 2008/09Sennett, The Craftsman; Crawford, Shop Class as Soulcraft.supports
• 2016/19Yuk Hui, On the Existence of Digital Objects; Ihde & Malafouris, "Homo faber Revisited", Philosophy & Technology 32. Malafourissupports

II · More than income

• 1930Keynes, "Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren", Essays in Persuasion.opposes
• 1974Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital.opposes
• 1981/82Jahoda, "Work, employment, and unemployment", American Psychologist 36(2), p. 188; Employment and Unemployment (Cambridge).supports
• 1982Schwartz, "Meaningful Work", Ethics 92(4).supports
• 1987Warr, Work, Unemployment and Mental Health (Clarendon), chs. 1, 15.supports
• 1998/2014Bowie, "A Kantian theory of meaningful work"; Yeoman, "Conceptualising meaningful work as a fundamental human need", J. Business Ethics.supports
• 2010/11Paul & Batinic, "The need for work", J. Organizational Behavior 31(1); Selenko, Batinic & Paul, J. Occup. Org. Psychology 84. JKUevidence
• 2010/23Rosso, Dekas & Wrzesniewski, Res. in Org. Behavior 30; Blustein, Lysova & Duffy, Annual Review of Org. Psychology 10.supports
• 2011Weeks, The Problem with Work (Duke).opposes
• 2015Frayne, The Refusal of Work (Zed).opposes
• 2016Gheaus & Herzog, "The Goods of Work (Other Than Money!)", J. Social Philosophy 47(1).supports
• 2018Graeber, Bullshit Jobs.opposes
• 2019Danaher, Automation and Utopia (Harvard). PhilArchiveopposes
• 2020D. Susskind, A World Without Work.opposes
• 2020–24Smids, Nyholm & Berkers, Philosophy & Technology 33(3); Danaher & Nyholm, "Automation, Work and the Achievement Gap", AI and Ethics 1(3); Scripter, Sci. Eng. Ethics 28; Bankins & Formosa, J. Business Ethics 185(4); Smids et al., J. Ethics 28(3). Bankins & Formosasupports

III · The long middle

• 1945–68Bush, "As We May Think"; Wiener, The Human Use of Human Beings; Licklider, "Man-Computer Symbiosis", IRE Trans. HFE 1; Engelbart, Augmenting Human Intellect (SRI); Licklider & Taylor, "The Computer as a Communication Device". Licklider 1960supports
• 1951/62/65Fitts (ed.), Human Engineering for an Effective Air Navigation and Traffic Control System; Fitts, "Functions of man in complex systems"; Chapanis, "On the allocation of functions between men and machines".supports
• 1969Simon, The Sciences of the Artificial.supports
• 1975Bibby, Margulies, Rijnsdorp, Withers & Makarov, "Man's Role in Control Systems", IFAC Proceedings Volumes 8(1), 664–683. Semantic Scholarsupports
• 1978/79Withers & Rijnsdorp, IFAC Social Effects of Automation report; Rijnsdorp (ed.), Case Studies in Automation Related to Humanization of Work (Pergamon). Withers & Rijnsdorpsupports
• 1978/92Sheridan & Verplank, Human and Computer Control of Undersea Teleoperators; Sheridan, Telerobotics, Automation, and Human Supervisory Control.supports
• 1979/83Zemanek, "Abstract Architecture", LNCS 86; Johannsen & Rijnsdorp (eds.), Analysis, Design and Evaluation of Man–Machine Systems (Pergamon).supports
• 1983Margulies & Zemanek, "Man's role in man–machine systems", Automatica 19(6), 677–683. ScienceDirectsupports
• 1983Bainbridge, "Ironies of Automation", Automatica 19, 775–779. PDFsupports
• 1983/90Rasmussen, "Skills, rules, and knowledge", IEEE Trans. SMC 13(3); Norman, "The 'problem' with automation", Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 327.supports
• 2000Parasuraman, Sheridan & Wickens, "A model for types and levels of human interaction with automation", IEEE Trans. SMC-A 30(3). recordsupports
• 2002Dekker & Woods, "MABA-MABA or Abracadabra?", Cognition, Technology & Work 4. unpaywallsupports
• 2003–24Autor, Levy & Murnane, QJE 118(4); Autor, "Why are there still so many jobs?", JEP 29(3); Acemoglu & Restrepo, "Automation and new tasks", JEP 33(2) and "The Wrong Kind of AI?", NBER 25682; Agrawal, Gans & Goldfarb (2019, 2023); Brynjolfsson, "The Turing Trap", Daedalus 151(2); Autor, "Applying AI to rebuild middle-class jobs", NBER 32140. Acemoglu & Restrepo 2019supports
• 2005–25Hollnagel & Woods, Joint Cognitive Systems; de Winter & Dodou, Cognition, Technology & Work 16; Endsley, "From here to autonomy", Human Factors 59(1); Dekker & Hollnagel, "The ironies of human factors". Dekker & Hollnagel 2025supports
• 2020Shneiderman, Human-Centered AI (UMD TR 2020-1; OUP 2022). arXivsupports
• 2025Handa et al., "Which Economic Tasks are Performed with AI?" arXivevidence

IV · The lawyer's letter

• 2015R. & D. Susskind, The Future of the Professions (OUP).supportsopposes
• 2019/21Amershi et al., "Guidelines for Human-AI Interaction", CHI; Bansal et al., "Does the whole exceed its parts?", CHI.evidence
• 2022–25Dell'Acqua, "Falling asleep at the wheel"; Dell'Acqua et al., "Navigating the jagged technological frontier", Organization Science; Dratsch et al., Radiology 307(4); Vaccaro, Almaatouq & Malone, Nature Human Behaviour 8. Dell'Acqua et al.evidence
• 2023Rodgers, Armour & Sako, "How technology is (or is not) transforming law firms", Annual Review of Law and Social Science 19, 299–317. Oxfordevidence
• 2023–26Noy & Zhang, Science 381; Peng et al., arXiv 2302.06590; Brynjolfsson, Li & Raymond, QJE 140(2); Choi & Schwarcz, SSRN 4539836; Schwarcz et al., "AI-Powered Lawyering" (2026). Schwarcz et al.evidence
• 2024/25Dahl, Magesh, Suzgun & Ho, "Large Legal Fictions", J. Legal Analysis 16(1), 64–93; Magesh et al., "Hallucination-Free?". Dahl et al.evidence
• 2024/25Clio, Legal Trends Report; Rapoport & Tiano, Wash. J. L. Tech. & Arts 20; Perlin, "How the Billable Hour Can Survive Generative AI", Stetson Business Law Review 5(1), 42–86. Perlinevidence
• 2026Autor, Rodchenko, Martin, Iscenko, Strand, Pearl & Ferere, "Does AI Assistance Enhance or Erode Expertise?", NBER WP 35720. NBERevidence
• 2026"Faster AI, Uneven Frontier", arXiv 2607.12125. arXivopposesevidence