C.W.M. Naastepad

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About

C.W.M. Naastepad is a critical scholar at the intersection of technology, economics, and human flourishing. Her research confronts the dominant narratives of technological progress, focusing on how the ICT Revolution reshapes work, human capacity, and societal well-being. Naastepad’s major contribution lies in reframing the debate on technological unemployment and the “Good Life,” arguing that unless we consciously direct technology, it will direct us—leading to mass underemployment and a potential atrophy of human thinking, feeling, and will. Her most cited work, “Robots and us: towards an economics of the ‘Good Life’” (2018, 17 citations), challenges the field of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) by questioning the societal implications of automation. In “Preventing Technological Unemployment by Widening our Understanding of Capital and Progress” (2019, 7 citations), she diagnoses the root of these problems as a failure to fully understand capital itself. Naastepad’s work is a vital, provocative call to reimagine progress not as technological acceleration, but as the creation of conditions for human development and meaningful work.