… this is a book about the second machine age unfolding right now—an inflection point in the history of our economies and societies because of digitization. It’s an inflection point in the right direction—bounty instead of scarcity, freedom instead of constraint—but one that will bring with it some difficult challenges and choices.
The first part gives many examples of recent technological progress that seem like the stuff of science fiction, explains why they’re happening now, and reveals why we should be confident that the scale and pace of innovation in computers, robots, and other digital gear is only going to accelerate in the future.
The second part explores bounty and spread, the two economic consequences of this progress. Bounty is the increase in volume, variety, and quality and the decrease in cost of the many offerings brought on by modern technological progress. It’s the best economic news in the world today. Spread, however, is not so great; it’s ever-bigger differences among people in economic success—in wealth, income, mobility, and other important measures. Spread has been increasing in recent years. This is a troubling development for many reasons, and one that will accelerate in the second machine age unless we intervene.
The final part discusses what interventions will be appropriate and effective for this age. Our economic goals should be to maximize the bounty while mitigating the negative effects of the spread.
by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew Mcafee
In recent years, Google’s autonomous cars have logged thousands of miles on American highways and IBM’s Watson trounced the best human Jeopardy! players. Digital technologies—with hardware, software, and networks at their core—will in the near future diagnose diseases more accurately than doctors can, apply enormous data sets to transform retailing, and accomplish many tasks once considered uniquely human.
In The Second Machine Age MIT’s Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee—two thinkers at the forefront of their field—reveal the forces driving the reinvention of our lives and our economy. As the full impact of digital technologies is felt, we will realize immense bounty in the form of dazzling personal technology, advanced infrastructure, and near-boundless access to the cultural items that enrich our lives.
Amid this bounty will also be wrenching change. Professions of all kinds—from lawyers to truck drivers—will be forever upended. Companies will be forced to transform or die. Recent economic indicators reflect this shift: fewer people are working, and wages are falling even as productivity and profits soar.
Drawing on years of research and up-to-the-minute trends, Brynjolfsson and McAfee identify the best strategies for survival and offer a new path to prosperity. These include revamping education so that it prepares people for the next economy instead of the last one, designing new collaborations that pair brute processing power with human ingenuity, and embracing policies that make sense in a radically transformed landscape.
A fundamentally optimistic book, The Second Machine Age will alter how we think about issues of technological, societal, and economic progress.