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We Are Not Machines

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What to expect

From award-winning Financial Times journalist Sarah O’Connor, a deeply reported investigation into how AI is transforming our working lives in unpredictable ways

A tsunami of change, we are told, is sweeping the economy, as robots and AI threaten to take over tasks done by humans. But while we worry that we’re robotizing our work, what if the bigger risk is that we’re robotizing ourselves?
When prize-winning Financial Times journalist Sarah O’Connor set out to investigate what was happening on the ground, she met people who weren’t necessarily losing their jobs to machines, but who felt they were losing something, nonetheless. Because the quantity of work is not the only thing at stake in times of rapid technological change. So is its quality.
From TV subtitle translators reduced to editing AI output to warehouse workers surrounded by robots and graduates interviewed by machines, O’Connor found stories of work becoming more intense, more lonely, less creative, less human.
But she also investigated hopeful instances of work being made better, safer and more enjoyable – stories in which people have been able to make the machines work for them, rather than the other way around.
Her reporting shows that the way our tools change our work - and ourselves - is shaped by power, design, culture, institutions and ideas. As a result, the outcome is not pre-determined but must be contested by us all.
Inspired by stories from nineteenth-century English cotton mills to twenty-first century Swedish mines, We Are Not Machines reveals how we can fight for work which is more respectful of our limits, and more worthy of our minds.

© Sarah O'Connor 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026

Critics Review

Original and enlightening, rooted in reality and populated by people. Not many books about the labour market make you laugh and bring tears to your eyes. This one does. It’s the kind of writing that AI will never replace... She talks to miners in Sweden, care workers in the Netherlands, drivers in America and online workers everywhere from Costa Rica to the Himalayas. Out of those stories she creates a remarkable picture of what is happening to jobs
The Times
Perceptive and captivating
New Statesman
Moving, powerful and refreshing... We Are Not Machines isn’t against technology per se... what animates the book is a question more concerned with humanity than technology
Spectator
Sarah is one of the few people who really understands how AI is changing the character of work already and what it means for all of us
Past Present Future Podcast
Enjoyable... O’Connor uncovers stark differences in the way technology is affecting people’s working lives, depending on their bargaining power over the way it is introduced... Importantly, O’Connor also reviews the growing evidence that we may be reading, thinking and understanding less as we lean on technological shortcuts – potentially changing the very nature of human intelligence
Guardian
Truly predicting how this technology will manifest in our lives is an impossible task, but O'Connor offers fascinating insights into the many ways in which it can affect workers...This book is a plea that as technological change occurs, we hold on to what makes us human
Irish Independent
Excellent and wide-ranging
New Scientist
Tactful... a curious and stimulating investigation... O’Connor implores that she still holds the belief that technology can help make the world better, but it won’t just happen naturally. The future that so many of us want and desire can happen, but “not without a fight”
Buzz Magazine
An engrossing read that reframes the ongoing debate about technological change away from binary lists of winners and losers, and towards a discussion of power, politics and humanity. It is well-rooted in economic history yet brisk, taking in the development of factory management since the Industrial Revolution... At the heart of this book is an exploration of how humans not only make tools, but are shaped by them
The House Magazine
A fierce, wise, beautiful book
Tim Harford
Author Sarah O'Connor
Narrator Sarah O'Connor
Duration 6 hours and 30 minutes
Release Date
ISBN 9781837313624
Format Audiobook
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Genre Artificial intelligence, Disruptive innovation, Robotics, Sociology: work and labour
Availability AU, GB, IE

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