No jobs, what now? – Are we ready for a world without work?

The Bunker – News without the nonsense

Podmasters

News, Government, Politics, Society & Culture

4.6 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 19 February 2026

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Artificial intelligence is chewing through the economy, wiping out manual work and supposedly safe professional jobs alike. Are politicians’ promises that A.I. will create new, better jobs to replace the ones it destroys hollow? How will we handle a world with drastically fewer jobs? Will it be an Oscar Wilde paradise or a Matrix nightmare? And did the Luddites have a point after all? Economic analyst and author of A World Without Work Daniel Susskind meets Andrew Harrison at the New Claims window. • Buy A World Without Work through our affiliate bookshop and you’ll help fund the podcast by earning us a small commission for every sale. Bookshop.org’s fees help support independent bookshops too. www.patreon.com/bunkercast Written and presented by Andrew Harrison. Producer: Liam Tait. Audio production by Simon Willia,s. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Artwork by James Parrett. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production. www.podmasters.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Sophie Tom and the kids are standing by the luggage carousel, waiting for Sophie's bag.
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1:42.1	Hello and welcome back to The Bunker, your daily ration of news without the nonsense. I'm Andrew Harrison.
1:46.1	Today, the idea of a future without work, where the majority of people are either supported by the state or just subsisting in poverty,
1:53.8	has been a staple of science fiction for a century or more. Whether it's light tasks and leisure for the elite in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World,
2:01.7	or the post-scircity world have automated plenty in Ian Banks's culture books,
2:06.8	the notion that hard graft would eventually come to an end was seen as a given.
	...

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