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35 Technology and unemployment: we have been here before* José Castro Caldas Centre for Social Studies (CES), University of Coimbra For if every tool could perform its own work when ordered, or by seeing what to do in advance … if thus shuttles wove and quills played harps of themselves, master-craftsmen would have no need of assistants and masters no need of slaves. Aristotle (384–322 BC), Politics 1 Machines able to perform work by themselves, either as programmed or by pre- dicting what will be asked of them, have invaded the public realm and become a recurring theme in the media. From agriculture to a wide variety of services and obvi- ously industry, current opin- ion is that (smart) machines will replace humans. * Editor’s note: Originally published in CULTIVAR issue 10 – Work in agriculture and new labour trends, December 2017, p. 15, as “Tecnologia e desemprego: já aqui estivemos antes”. https://www.gpp.pt/images/GPP/O_que_disponibilizamos/Publicacoes/CULTIVAR_10/E_book/CULTIVAR_10_Trabalho_na_agricultura_e_ as_novas_tendencias_laborais/16/ 1 Aristotle, Politics , Book I, Part 4, translated by Carnes Lord, University of Chicago Press, 2013. 2 “Machines, not Americans, could replace immigrant workers”, by Patrick Gillespie, CNNMoney, 18 August 2017. http://money.cnn.com/2017/08/18/news/economy/us-farmers-immigration-automation/index.html 3 “U.S. workers face higher risk of being replaced by robots. Here’s why”, by Alanna Petroff, 24 March 2017, CNNTech. http://money.cnn.com/2017/03/24/technology/robots-jobs-us-workers-uk/index.html “With the shortage of workers, we have to develop other means to help us grow, harvest and process our crops – robotics, mechanisation and automa- tion,” announced CNN last August, citing the pres- ident of the Grower-Shipper Association of Central California. Californian agriculture, CNN explained, depends on immigrant labour. If Trump’s plans go ahead and Mexican labour ceases to be available, robots will replace immigrants. 2 However, in another CNN arti- cle, American workers should also be worried: “Thirty-eight percent of jobs in the US are at high risk of being replaced by robots and artificial intelli- gence over the next 15 years.” 3 By contrast, also on CNN, some also believe that “The The solution to the shortage of labour, jobs destruction, or destruction offset by new jobs creation? Except for those who believe they can predict the unpredictable… nobody knows for sure. … robotics, mechanisation and automation …