Name: Rise of the Robots
ISBN: 9780465059997

Martin R. Ford

A artificial-intelligence entrepreneur offers a stark warning about what we must do to keep an automated economy from being a massively unjust one.

Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future

Rise of the Robots

Luke Kanies

This book is trying to convince you, not educate you. I quit about a third of the way through.

Obviously automation can destroy jobs, but it can also create them, yet you would never learn that from this book. I don’t mean in some sort of happy, “it could happen” sense, I mean — pretty much every job I can think of is only possible because of automation, from trucking to any computer job at all to lots more.

Its agenda of frightening you about the consequences of automation overrides its goal of educating you.

If you are already scared of automation and think it will destroy a lot, this is the book for you. If you would like to understand how automation will affect your life, the economy, and workers weak and powerful, this book has nothing to teach you.

Luca Conti

Economics meets technology and the result is our future. If you want to read into the future, this is the right book. Scary sometimes, beware.

Bryan Alexander

Rise of the Robots is a brisk, accessible overview of current thinking about the possibilities of automation. 

Martin Ford takes us through the major issues, technologies, and problems. He begins with several chapters exploring what we mean by automation (robotics plus good software), the importance of developments over the past decade, and the macroeconomic context. Then the chapters advance through the potential impact of automation on white collar jobs (management, professions), education, health care, and consumer spending (and hence economic health). Ford then ups the ante by invoking truly advanced, far more radically disruptive technologies (AI, nanotechnology), before turning to policy questions and recommendations.

Quick summary: Ford sees automation as growing rapidly, and likely to take up a large number of jobs (both working class and white collar) without generating more than a relative few in response. This could lead to massive unemployment, increasing economic inequality, and a new version of feudalism (see below). He doesn't see education ameliorating things, nor is enacting anti-automation policies likely to work at all. Instead, a guaranteed minimum income looks like the best solution, giving people a basic standard of living in lives with little or no work.

The book is curiously restrained. Ford actually resists energetic extrapolation throughout the book. He hedges every development and holds back on big visions. In one chapter he describes his approach as "a very realistic, even conservative view of the way technology is likely to progress" (228), and that applies to the rest of Rise of the Robots. This is very helpful, actually, a nice counter to the more manic visions of Kurzweil et al.

While serving as a sort of textbook or public affairs primer on current affairs,  Rise of the Robots offers some thoughtful insights:
...the possibility that rapidly developed automation, deeply integrated into society, might push back research into more advanced technologies, notably AI and nano tech. (248)...
the financial sector's growth "has been highly dependent on advancing information technology. Virtually all of the financial innovations that have arisen in recent decades... would not have been possible without access to powerful computers." (56) And that's before mentioning high speed trading.
...With regard to education, "A college credential may well become less expensive and more accessible to many students, but at the same time, technology could devastate an industry that is itself a major nexus of employment for highly educated workers." (143)
...Ford raises the possibility that widespread automation in China might sap that nation's consumer demand. "China is in a race not just with demographics but also with technology." (225)
...Or this: "professional economics... are completely unable to agree on what I would characterize as a fundamental economic question: Is a demand shortfall holding back economic growth, and, if so, is income inequality an important contributor to the problem?" (204-5)
...the book isn't long on history, but does entertainingly invoke a famous blue-ribbon commission report on the threat of automation to American economics and society - from 1964.

Throughout the book looms a very powerful and dystopian vision, based on some negative possibilities of what could happen if automation rapidly rolls out and removes much employment, while income inequality continues to grow. I think of this as feudalism 2.0: [T]he mass-market industries that currently power our economy would be replaced by new industries producing high-value products and services geared exclusively towards a super-wealthy elite. The vast majority of humanity would effectively be disenfranchised. Economic mobility would become nonexistent. The plutocracy would shut itself away in gated communities or in elite cities, perhaps guarded by autonomous military robots and drones. In other words, we would see a return to something like the feudal system.. There would be one very important difference, however: medieval serfs were essential to the system since they provided the agricultural labor. In a futuristic world governed by automated feudalism, the peasants would be largely superfluous. (219)
In case that's not dark enough, Ford invokes Noah Smith's amped-up version, which adds powerful, robot-enforced state tyrannies. The book also name-checks Elysium, unfortunately (because it's a lousy film). Ford is clearly not relishing these scenarios, but deploying them as an exercise in futures thinking. They also serve to encourage readers to support alternative visions, namely guaranteed minimum income.

However, the book races along too quickly and too lightly, opening up plenty of holes in its argument. Footnotes are pretty thin and don't use enough academic sources. The section on education is far too fast; I might tackle it in a blog post. Ford tosses off the claim that there's massive abuse of Social Security disability payments (262) without offering supporting evidence. He asks us to consider education a public good, but doesn't want to consider increasing public support of higher ed (263). He passes over minimum income experiments far too quickly (268). It's a pretty US-centric view without enough global attention. And I don't think he's sanguine enough about oligarchy.

So why do I recommend it? Because Ford writes with a great deal of clarity. He brings together most of current thinking on these subjects, which is useful. He avoids extremes, such as Kurzweil's or Nicholas Carr's apocalypses. This is a practical, sober book.

Sunky

Jason Skicewicz

Mehmet Ali Ertürk

Martin Ford

Winner of the 2015 FT & McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award ANew York Times Bestseller Top Business Book of 2015 at Forbes One of NBCNews.com 12 Notable Science and Technology Books of 2015 What are the jobs of the future? How many will there be? And who will have them? As technology continues to accelerate and machines begin taking care of themselves, fewer people will be necessary. Artificial intelligence is already well on its way to making "good jobs” obsolete: many paralegals, journalists, office workers, and even computer programmers are poised to be replaced by robots and smart software. As progress continues, blue and white collar jobs alike will evaporate, squeezing working- and middle-class families ever further. At the same time, households are under assault from exploding costs, especially from the two major industries--education and health care--that, so far, have not been transformed by information technology. The result could well be massive unemployment and inequality as well as the implosion of the consumer economy itself. The past solutions to technological disruption, especially more training and education, aren’t going to work. We must decide, now, whether the future will see broad-based prosperity or catastrophic levels of inequality and economic insecurity.Rise of the Robots is essential reading to understand what accelerating technology means for our economic prospects--not to mention those of our children--as well as for society as a whole.

Mechelle

Dani

Intelligent algorithms are already well on their way to making white collar jobs obsolete: travel agents, data-analysts, and paralegals are currently in the firing line. In the near future, doctors, taxi-drivers and ironically even computer programmers are poised to be replaced by ‘robots’. Without a radical reassessment of our economic and political structures, we risk the very implosion of the capitalist economy itself. In The Rise of the Robots, technology expert Martin Ford systematically outlines the achievements of artificial intelligence and uses a wealth of economic data to illustrate the terrifying societal implications. From health and education to finance and technology, his warning is stark – all jobs that are on some level routine are likely to eventually be automated, resulting in the death of traditional careers and a hollowed-out middle class. The robots are coming and we have to decide – now – whether the future will bring prosperity or catastrophe.

Rise of the Robots Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future

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