Do modern inventions supplant human labor? This question has been debated throughout the ages, including at the advent of the typewriter. Wrote one journal in defense of the invention, “New conditions are sure to arise from time to time, and it is useless to rail against them. Let the clerk who sees how rapidly the use of the typewriter is spreading, make himself competent to work the instrument. If he will not do so, the work will slip from his fingers into those of the wiser people who make it their business to qualify themselves to do the work which is expected of them.”
Of course, the question remains, at what point will machines finally supplant humans? The typewriter did not, but what about computers?
The Phonetic Journal, June 4, 1892 –
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