By Heather Stewart
Publication Date: 2026-06-14 11:03:00
A robot magician named D4YRL was rejected as a member of the Magic Circle last week because he wasn’t human enough.
While D4YRL’s tricks were exemplary, the august organization decided that “he” couldn’t appeal to the audience’s emotions the way a real artist would.
With robotics and AI now advancing at breakneck speed, this was the latest example of an organization forced to grapple with questions once reserved for philosophy – such as what it means to be human.
In her entertaining new book We Are Not Machines, FT journalist Sarah O’Connor takes a long, detailed look at a pressing aspect of this problem: how AI is changing our jobs and perhaps ourselves.
She spends time with Amazon employees whose tasks are constantly monitored; And with unseen personnel thousands of miles away in India and Costa Rica watching hours of mind-boggling video footage to train the AI systems that monitor the warehouses.
“We think we are robotizing our work, but what if…
