Some analysts consider the process of automation a second industrial revolution with the potentiality for a social upheaval that marked the birth of the factory a century and a half ago. Others insist it is just another step in industry's progress toward greater efficiency, no different in its basic attributes from any of the technological advances that have helped raise American wages, employment totals and living standards.
Congressional investigations, puzzled about what action the government should take, have been told by union leaders that automation threatens mass unemployment and by business executives that it will bring unparalleled prosperity.
Engineers say that push-button factories may eventually permit a work schedule in which the week-end will be longer than the week. Educators see all this leisure promoting a scholastic renaissance in which cultural attainments will become the yardstick of social recognition for workers and boss alike. Gloomier observers fear the trend toward “inhuman production” will end by making men obsolete.
1. The passage is primarily concerned with .
2. Which of the following statements is true?
3. The position of the author is to .
4. Whose opinion indicates that automation is a great threat to social stability?
