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But a 20th century shift in the economy saw a huge increase in white collar jobs and an expansion of the middle class. And now, Friedman says belonging to a social class is about more than employment. He’s found that people from privileged backgrounds instead tend to delineate themselves in terms of their “cultural discernment,” i.e. what they consume and how they consume it. So while your job might have some impact on your social class, so does reading VICE.In fact, Friedman said, the middle classes tend to view themselves as the opposite of “robotic” in their inclinations. “What often comes up in our interviews around class is that they [the middle classes] constantly try to distinguish themselves against a sort of mythical ‘other’ who is categorized as almost robotic, in the sense of being too co-opted by mainstream culture; not looking for challenging cultural experiences and being too easily duped by what marketing people want them to consume,” he said.While robots’ roles in society are determined purely on the tasks they’re able to complete, rather than the more qualitative requirements of culture and taste, they’re unlikely to be accepted into the class their human coworkers might belong to. Friedman also suggested that the goalposts for acceptance are flexible, and that the middle classes would be protective of their social position."Giving a cup of tea to a little old lady is a bigger IT robotics challenge than doing chess against Kasparov."
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For a start, we’re rarely talking about humanoid robots or even physical machines at all; in many cases, these middle class “jobs” are being given to algorithms. The idea of robots usurping humans’ positions implies that the robots are autonomous and working under their own auspices—which, for the foreseeable future, isn’t the case. Even those robots that have a high degree of autonomy are programmed to do certain tasks by the companies that make them and/or the employers that use them; they’re not taking it upon themselves to angle for a promotion above their fleshy coworkers."You could say the middle classes will always find a new way of distinguishing themselves even if their jobs are under threat by robots."
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