Work and Industrial Revolutions: Risks, Opportunities, Policies

The essay intends to analyze the evolution of work and of work organization across four industrial Revolutions, each linked to waves of technological progress which gave rise to different models of capitalism and of entreprises. More specifically the paper aims to examine generally the benefits and costs of technological innovation and, among the social costs of innovation, the risks relating to work (involution and destruction of work due to technological progress), the opportunities (liberation of work and creation of new professional figures linked to technological progress), the necessary policies to govern ex ante and ex post the processes of technological transition with particular attention to the last frontier, the development of artificial intelligence and enabling technologies, with all their multidimensional challenges.