LEADER 04799nam 22006735 450 001 9911016279503321 005 20250731130707.0 010 $a3-031-87132-4 024 7 $a10.1007/978-3-031-87132-0 035 $a(CKB)40073251000041 035 $a(DE-He213)978-3-031-87132-0 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC32260869 035 $a(Au-PeEL)EBL32260869 035 $a(EXLCZ)9940073251000041 100 $a20250731d2025 u| 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aur||||||||||| 181 $ctxt$2rdacontent 182 $cc$2rdamedia 183 $acr$2rdacarrier 200 10$aUtopia in the Factory $ePrefigurative Knowledge Against Cybernetics /$fby Rhiannon Firth, John Preston 205 $a1st ed. 2025. 210 1$aCham :$cSpringer Nature Switzerland :$cImprint: Palgrave Macmillan,$d2025. 215 $a1 online resource (XV, 193 p.) 311 08$a3-031-87131-6 327 $aChapter 1- Introdcution -- Chapter 2- The Utopian Promise of Cybernetics -- Chapter 3- The Dystopian Realities of Cybernetics -- Chapter 4- Industry 4.0 Utopias? Human potential and prefiguration in advanced cybernetic manufacturing -- Chapter 5- Co-operative Utopias in Automation -- Chapter 6- Hackspaces and Automation as Hobbying -- Chapter 7- Conclusion: De-naturalising cybernetics - against a dystopian future. 330 $a This book is open access.The idea that automation, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotics might lead to a utopian future for humanity is a powerful one both in mainstream and radical discourse. The paradigm of ?Industry 4.0? where digital manufacturing enables the seamless production of goods (and services) and ?lights out? factories where machines and robots effortlessly produce for our future needs and wants are powerful drivers of a capitalist, free market cybertopia. For some radicals, technology and automation produce the conditions for a Fully Automated Luxury Communism, drawing on an interpretation of Marx, where human work would be replaced by a life of leisure and abundance for all. For others, an earlier discourse ? cybernetics - and the use of AI and social media in communication and co-ordination enable forms of radical organization through ?anarchist cybernetics?. This book questions that technological optimism ? particularly cybernetics, automation and AI ? through a critique of these technologies and organizational forms. Cybernetics and corresponding technologies and forms (particularly Industry 4.0) can never capture human forms of creativity and working practices. Furthermore, there are similar problems with the ?cybernetic paradigm? as a radical form of organization or social movement in terms of human autonomy, creativity, desire and social prefiguration. As counterpoint the book shows, through empirical evidence and drawing on interviews with workers or activists in a variety of organizational forms, that tacit knowledge and autonomous and spontaneous human projects (what the authors define as ?hobbying?) are critical in the physical act of making and co-operating. Rhiannon Firth is Lecturer in Sociology of Education at the Institute of Education, University College London. She is interested in anti-authoritarian organising within, against and beyond the crises of capitalism. Her research focuses on grassroots utopias, mutual aid and the pedagogical and prefigurative practices of radical social movements. John Preston is Professor of Sociology at the University of Essex, UK. He has pioneered an original stream of research in the sociology of disasters and existential threats. His work also explores the sociology of education and, most recently, skills and AI. 606 $aMass media 606 $aPolitical sociology 606 $aArtificial intelligence 606 $aSocial structure 606 $aEquality 606 $aIndustrial sociology 606 $aMedia Sociology 606 $aPolitical Sociology 606 $aArtificial Intelligence 606 $aSocial Structure 606 $aSociology of Work 615 0$aMass media. 615 0$aPolitical sociology. 615 0$aArtificial intelligence. 615 0$aSocial structure. 615 0$aEquality. 615 0$aIndustrial sociology. 615 14$aMedia Sociology. 615 24$aPolitical Sociology. 615 24$aArtificial Intelligence. 615 24$aSocial Structure. 615 24$aSociology of Work. 676 $a302.23 700 $aFirth$b Rhiannon$4aut$4http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators/aut$01253334 702 $aPreston$b John$4aut$4http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators/aut 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bMiAaPQ 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9911016279503321 996 $aUtopia in the Factory$94412343 997 $aUNINA