Work
Severed workers, remote bodies and robot colleagues: the near future of the job.
6 pieces on Nearfi: 5 reviews and 1 essay. Across their 27 tracked predictions, 7 have arrived, 12 are arriving, 6 are near, 2 are far off and 0 went another way. The average P(n) is 77%. Closest to now: at 100%. Furthest: Moon at 53%.
- ARRIVING Humanoid robots do paid physical work alongside people, on ordinary shifts. Humans
- ARRIVING Workers in one place remotely operate or guide robots that do physical work somewhere else. Sleep Dealer
- ARRIVED Companies sell interactive digital versions of dead people to the people who survive them. Upload · 2024
- ARRIVING An AI agent takes a software task from ticket to shipped production change with no human writing or reviewing the code.
- ARRIVING A browser agent can act inside your logged-in accounts on the open web without being hijacked by instructions hidden in the pages it reads.
- ARRIVING Companion machines ship with an adult mode that owners can switch on. Humans · est. 2027
- ARRIVING From a single request, an AI agent does a week's worth of desk research and produces a report a professional would accept, with every source real and correctly cited. · est. 2028
- ARRIVING An AI agent books a trip, flights and hotel, end to end from a single request, with no human stepping in before the booking is confirmed. · est. 2029
- NEAR An AI agent completes most paid remote freelance projects to the standard a client would accept from a professional. · est. 2031
- ARRIVING People own self-driving cars that drive them without a human at the wheel. Upload · est. 2031
The guide: Sci-Fi About Work: 5 Stories About Bosses, Bots and Replaceable Workers →
The Agents, Reviewed
Science fiction promised us a someone. In November 2026 we have twelve very fast interns, a few of them excellent, and none of them should be left alone with the backups.
No Escape Key
Apple's office horror is the most beautiful thing ever made about a cubicle, and its sharpest prophecy has nothing to do with the chip in Mark's head.
The Company Keeps You
Duncan Jones's five-million-dollar debut got the mineral, the payroll and the machine right, and the machine is the only one who comes out of it well.
The Labour Crosses, the Body Stays
Alex Rivera's low-budget Sundance film is clumsy as drama and almost frighteningly sharp as economics, and its central idea, labour that crosses the border without the worker, is starting to come true.
Adult Options Sold Separately
Channel 4's suburban robot drama had the sharpest first series of any British science fiction in years, then spent two more proving that a good premise is not the same as a good plot.
Heaven Has a Data Cap
Greg Daniels's digital-afterlife comedy has one great joke, that heaven is a subscription tier, and spends four seasons explaining it to us.
More themes: AI and machine minds · Surveillance and scoring · Space · Climate and scarcity · Pandemics and collapse · Borders and migration · Clones and genetics · Grief and technology · Memory