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davidr's review against another edition
4.0
The first part of this book reviews the incredible boom in technologies that are driving much of our economy. After that, the remainder of the book is about "bounty and spread". Bounty is the increased level of prosperity that some--but not all--of the population enjoys, as productivity increases. Spread is the growth of inequality, as much of the increased prosperity goes to the top economic levels, and little gets distributed to the lower economic levels. Thus, there ia a growing "spread" of income levels, what we normally would call "inequality".
The authors show that real, inflation-adjusted wages have grown since 1963 for people who have graduated from college or graduate school. High school graduates have not had real wage increases, and high school dropouts have had wage decreases. The authors note that some increases in "prosperity" cannot be measured; who in 1963 had a cell phone, a tablet computer, or cable TV? These consumer items were not available at any prices, and Moore's law has allowed these electronic inventions advance spectacularly in power in recent decades. However, these consumer items are not fully indicative of prosperity, since real estate, food, and transportation have not kept up with Moore's law. These are necessities, not luxuries, and thus the overall prosperity of most people has not increased with time.
The authors conclude with a set of policies that would help increase the prosperity of even the lower-level economic class; overhaul the education system, encourage entrepreneurship, encourage better match-ups between skills and jobs, increase support for science, upgrade infrastructure, reform patent law and reform taxes.
This is a well-written, basic-level book dealing with economics. It's interesting, but the recommendations a bit bland. There is little discussion about how to surmount the political hurdles. There is not much here that isn't also discussed elsewhere.
The authors show that real, inflation-adjusted wages have grown since 1963 for people who have graduated from college or graduate school. High school graduates have not had real wage increases, and high school dropouts have had wage decreases. The authors note that some increases in "prosperity" cannot be measured; who in 1963 had a cell phone, a tablet computer, or cable TV? These consumer items were not available at any prices, and Moore's law has allowed these electronic inventions advance spectacularly in power in recent decades. However, these consumer items are not fully indicative of prosperity, since real estate, food, and transportation have not kept up with Moore's law. These are necessities, not luxuries, and thus the overall prosperity of most people has not increased with time.
The authors conclude with a set of policies that would help increase the prosperity of even the lower-level economic class; overhaul the education system, encourage entrepreneurship, encourage better match-ups between skills and jobs, increase support for science, upgrade infrastructure, reform patent law and reform taxes.
This is a well-written, basic-level book dealing with economics. It's interesting, but the recommendations a bit bland. There is little discussion about how to surmount the political hurdles. There is not much here that isn't also discussed elsewhere.
vtijms's review against another edition
3.0
I guess this book is interesting if you've never given our changing economy much thought or if you haven't been paying attention to technological progress since the eighties. If you have been, this book offers very little.
hellified's review against another edition
3.0
Got repetitive after a time. Made some good observations early on that I enjoyed, but should have been a shorter book.
noisydeadlines's review against another edition
5.0
An excellent account of the state of technology today and how it affects the work force. Full of new perspectives and ideas for the future.
jqb603's review against another edition
4.0
I picked up this book because I'd read a few this year about AI and the various impacts it may have on the future of humanity. Other than the obvious risk of unleashing superintelligent AI with poorly programmed objectives, the future of employment is my largest concern. The pincer of development in AI and robotics may not leave much on the table for humans to do. This doesn't have to be a dire proposition, but it certainly will be if we don't properly navigate the turmoil. My hope was that this book would be an in depth exploration of how we humans might find fulfillment and meet our material needs once most of the work we currently do can be done better by machines.
I was slightly concerned that the book was written in 2014, and unfortunately my concerns were realized. I would have really liked this book in 2014, because most of the book was spent convincing the reader that the path that we're on is one in which whole categories of employment fall into the gaping maw of automation and machine intelligence. The central problem is one of "bounty and spread", where developed nations have increasing economic output, but the median wage of workers are decreasing in real dollars. Wealth and income inequality are growing so fast that the rising average income is not raising all ships. Also, unemployment in low (or medium) skilled work that is routine in nature is being subsumed by machines. I was already convinced of all that. Only in the third (of three) part of the book do the authors discuss ideas for the future. The first chapter in this section gives advice to the individual job seeker (seek out non-routine work, or work that complements a machine intelligence). The second gives advice for policy makers (various tweaks to taxation and subsidization). Only in the last chapter of the last section of the book do they very briefly touch on the far future. But they don't go much deeper than putting forward a list of the ideas that they've heard for how we can sustain everyone when a small handful of corporations create astronomical wealth. For those interested, here is that clip from the book:
• Create a national mutual fund distributing the ownership of capital widely and perhaps inalienably, providing a dividend stream to all citizens and assuring the capital returns do not become highly concentrated.
• Use taxes, regulation, contests, grand challenges, or other incentives to try to direct technical change toward machines that augment human ability rather than substitute for it, toward new goods and services and away from labor savings.
• Pay people via nonprofits and other organizations to do ‘socially beneficial’ tasks, as determined by a democratic process.
• Nurture or celebrate special categories of work to be done by humans only. For instance, care for babies and young children, or perhaps the dying, might fall into this category.
• Start a ‘made by humans’ labeling movement, similar to those now in place for organic foods, or award credits for companies that employ humans, similar to the carbon offsets that can be purchased. If some consumers wanted to increase the demand for human workers, such labels or credits would let them do so.
•Provide vouchers for basic necessities like food, clothing, and housing, eliminating the extremes of poverty but letting the market manage income above that level.
• Ramp up hiring by the government via programs like the Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps to clean up the environment, build infrastructure, and address other public goods. A variant is to increase the role of ‘workfare,’ i.e., direct payments tied to a work requirement.
In summary, this was a good book, but not the book that I was hoping to read. If you find it hard to imagine that machines are going to exacerbate the growing trend of wealth inequality, unemployment, and falling real wages for several types of work in the 21st century, this book puts together a solid case to convince you.
I was slightly concerned that the book was written in 2014, and unfortunately my concerns were realized. I would have really liked this book in 2014, because most of the book was spent convincing the reader that the path that we're on is one in which whole categories of employment fall into the gaping maw of automation and machine intelligence. The central problem is one of "bounty and spread", where developed nations have increasing economic output, but the median wage of workers are decreasing in real dollars. Wealth and income inequality are growing so fast that the rising average income is not raising all ships. Also, unemployment in low (or medium) skilled work that is routine in nature is being subsumed by machines. I was already convinced of all that. Only in the third (of three) part of the book do the authors discuss ideas for the future. The first chapter in this section gives advice to the individual job seeker (seek out non-routine work, or work that complements a machine intelligence). The second gives advice for policy makers (various tweaks to taxation and subsidization). Only in the last chapter of the last section of the book do they very briefly touch on the far future. But they don't go much deeper than putting forward a list of the ideas that they've heard for how we can sustain everyone when a small handful of corporations create astronomical wealth. For those interested, here is that clip from the book:
• Create a national mutual fund distributing the ownership of capital widely and perhaps inalienably, providing a dividend stream to all citizens and assuring the capital returns do not become highly concentrated.
• Use taxes, regulation, contests, grand challenges, or other incentives to try to direct technical change toward machines that augment human ability rather than substitute for it, toward new goods and services and away from labor savings.
• Pay people via nonprofits and other organizations to do ‘socially beneficial’ tasks, as determined by a democratic process.
• Nurture or celebrate special categories of work to be done by humans only. For instance, care for babies and young children, or perhaps the dying, might fall into this category.
• Start a ‘made by humans’ labeling movement, similar to those now in place for organic foods, or award credits for companies that employ humans, similar to the carbon offsets that can be purchased. If some consumers wanted to increase the demand for human workers, such labels or credits would let them do so.
•Provide vouchers for basic necessities like food, clothing, and housing, eliminating the extremes of poverty but letting the market manage income above that level.
• Ramp up hiring by the government via programs like the Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps to clean up the environment, build infrastructure, and address other public goods. A variant is to increase the role of ‘workfare,’ i.e., direct payments tied to a work requirement.
In summary, this was a good book, but not the book that I was hoping to read. If you find it hard to imagine that machines are going to exacerbate the growing trend of wealth inequality, unemployment, and falling real wages for several types of work in the 21st century, this book puts together a solid case to convince you.
j0s's review against another edition
4.0
Really interesting topic. Although I didn't know much about it, it was easy to follow. I liked the introduction and middle section the most. The end section, where they present solutions, seemed a bit rushed and not as well thought out as the rest. Which kind of makes sense, as the point of the middle section is showing that a lot is going to change and we cannot predict exactly how. Still, I would have liked some more clarity.
sarahmonster's review against another edition
4.0
Great ideas, pretty readable without getting _too_ dry ... but probably could have done with a more ruthless editor to keep it from getting too meandering.
Also I really wish they'd addressed the fact that almost every human referenced is a man, including literally every single quote at the beginning of each chapter. It's a pretty common phenomenon in these sorts of futures-economy-innovation fields, but it's a real bummer when people don't address it.
Also I really wish they'd addressed the fact that almost every human referenced is a man, including literally every single quote at the beginning of each chapter. It's a pretty common phenomenon in these sorts of futures-economy-innovation fields, but it's a real bummer when people don't address it.
peter__b's review against another edition
2.0
This has a lot less to do with technology and more to do with economics than I was expecting. I'm not a fan of economics, especially the in-depth discussions about it that happen in this book. I frequently found myself dozing off since the content was just so dull. There's definitely some interesting concepts and ideas, most of which I didn't know about, but the amount of depth that was added to each of those was just too much.
The broad concepts were well structured and interesting on their own, but most of the sub-chapters were mostly unnecessary and often times I just felt like I was being bombarded with statistics. This could easily have been half the length and with some proper editing, could have been quite enjoyable even. The focus on American issues was also unnecessary, since the proliferation of technology is not just restricted to the USA.
I think I was mostly disappointed due to having had the expectation that this book would go into the issues the arise from our current trends in technology. Although there is content about it, it's hidden in endless meandering about economics. I suspect people who are more inclined towards economics, would enjoy this more and people who enjoy thinking about statistics and economic theory even more so. However, not being American and not particularly enjoying either of those topics, I was just not the target audience for this particular book.
The broad concepts were well structured and interesting on their own, but most of the sub-chapters were mostly unnecessary and often times I just felt like I was being bombarded with statistics. This could easily have been half the length and with some proper editing, could have been quite enjoyable even. The focus on American issues was also unnecessary, since the proliferation of technology is not just restricted to the USA.
I think I was mostly disappointed due to having had the expectation that this book would go into the issues the arise from our current trends in technology. Although there is content about it, it's hidden in endless meandering about economics. I suspect people who are more inclined towards economics, would enjoy this more and people who enjoy thinking about statistics and economic theory even more so. However, not being American and not particularly enjoying either of those topics, I was just not the target audience for this particular book.