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A review by atxspacecowboy
The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies by Andrew McAfee, Erik Brynjolfsson
3.0
Overall, The Second Machine Age was well done and hyper-relevant for the line of work I am in, so it was exciting at times.
...except when it wasn't.
Notes:
Roboticist Hans Moravec said, "it is comparatively easy to make computers exhibit adult-level performance on intelligence tests or playing checkers, and difficult, or impossible, to give them the skills of a one-year-old when it comes to perception and mobility."
Moravec's Paradox:
Contrary to traditional assumptions, high-level reasoning requires very little computation, but low-level sensory motor skills require you enormous computational resources.
With A.I., the hard problems are easy and the easy problems are hard.
Digitization
Of the 3.5 trillion photos that have been snapped since the first photo in 1838, fully 10% have been taken in the last year.
It is estimated that more photos now are taken every 2 minutes than in all of the 19th century.
The primary driver for income inequality is exponential, digital and combinatorial change in the technology that undergirds our economic system. This conclusion is bolstered by the fact that similar trends are apparent in similarly advanced countries. For instance, in Sweden, Finland and Germany income inequality has actually grown more quickly over the past 20-30 years than in the United States.
"In a very real sense, as long as there are unmet needs and wants in the world, unemployment is a loud warning that we simply aren't thinking hard enough about what needs doing. We aren't being creative enough about solving the problems we have, using the freedom of time and energy of the people whose jobs were automated away."
Voltaire said: "Judge a man by his questions not by his answers."
and
"Work save a man from three great evils; boredom, vice and need."
Economist Andrew Oswald found that joblessness lasting six months or longer harms feelings of well-being and other measures of mental health about as much as the death of a spouse and that little of this decline arises from the loss of income. Instead, it arises from a loss of self worth.
Jim Clifton, Gallup CEO said, "The primary will of the world is no longer about peace, or freedom, or even democracy. It is not about having a family and it is neither about God nor owning a home or land. The will of the world is first and foremost to have a good job, everything else comes after that."
Sociologist William Julius Wilson:
The consequences of high neighborhood joblessness are more devastating than those of high neighborhood poverty. A neighborhood in which people are poor but employed is different from a neighborhood in which many people are poor and jobless.
Some of the "We support _____ tax/cause/etc" statements towards the end were a little too much for me. Also, it's clear that they have ties to Apple or are just huge Apple fans because every time they brought up a piece of technology it was "like that which is featured in Apple's iPhone/pad/pood/whatever."
...except when it wasn't.
Notes:
Roboticist Hans Moravec said, "it is comparatively easy to make computers exhibit adult-level performance on intelligence tests or playing checkers, and difficult, or impossible, to give them the skills of a one-year-old when it comes to perception and mobility."
Moravec's Paradox:
Contrary to traditional assumptions, high-level reasoning requires very little computation, but low-level sensory motor skills require you enormous computational resources.
With A.I., the hard problems are easy and the easy problems are hard.
Digitization
Of the 3.5 trillion photos that have been snapped since the first photo in 1838, fully 10% have been taken in the last year.
It is estimated that more photos now are taken every 2 minutes than in all of the 19th century.
The primary driver for income inequality is exponential, digital and combinatorial change in the technology that undergirds our economic system. This conclusion is bolstered by the fact that similar trends are apparent in similarly advanced countries. For instance, in Sweden, Finland and Germany income inequality has actually grown more quickly over the past 20-30 years than in the United States.
"In a very real sense, as long as there are unmet needs and wants in the world, unemployment is a loud warning that we simply aren't thinking hard enough about what needs doing. We aren't being creative enough about solving the problems we have, using the freedom of time and energy of the people whose jobs were automated away."
Voltaire said: "Judge a man by his questions not by his answers."
and
"Work save a man from three great evils; boredom, vice and need."
Economist Andrew Oswald found that joblessness lasting six months or longer harms feelings of well-being and other measures of mental health about as much as the death of a spouse and that little of this decline arises from the loss of income. Instead, it arises from a loss of self worth.
Jim Clifton, Gallup CEO said, "The primary will of the world is no longer about peace, or freedom, or even democracy. It is not about having a family and it is neither about God nor owning a home or land. The will of the world is first and foremost to have a good job, everything else comes after that."
Sociologist William Julius Wilson:
The consequences of high neighborhood joblessness are more devastating than those of high neighborhood poverty. A neighborhood in which people are poor but employed is different from a neighborhood in which many people are poor and jobless.
Some of the "We support _____ tax/cause/etc" statements towards the end were a little too much for me. Also, it's clear that they have ties to Apple or are just huge Apple fans because every time they brought up a piece of technology it was "like that which is featured in Apple's iPhone/pad/pood/whatever."