In the next 15 years, it is estimated that at least 40% of jobs are going to be replaced by machines. Nowhere is this future more apparent than in Jaywick in the UK where 60% of the population have already either lost their jobs or are out of work, mostly because of the insurgence of automation and machine learning and the inevitable decline of jobs that these technologies have brought about.

Given the current lack of understanding and debate surrounding emerging technologies, very little is projected about the impact, both positive and negative, that automation and future technologies will have on our society.

Through this project, I collaborated with Jaywick’s local community to create a practical workshop where local people could build fully functioning crypto-miners to allow them a real means of generating a secondary, supplementary income.

This call to action aims not only to outline the very real potential of automated technologies but also to stimulate debate as to what we want our collective future to look like, and how we can ensure that future technologies are democratic and support the many and not the few.