The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies

Book about the changes occurred in the domains of technologies in the last 50 years, and its effects in society, mainly in current economy. Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee start by overviewing technologies and then go in depth recognising the side effects of its advances in economy and capitalism, recognising that the effects of this second age are not similar to the ones from the first age (Industrial Revolution), mainly in terms of real job disappearance and inequality, supporting general ideas from the movement 99%. The authors dedicate a big part also discussing new opportunities and some possible policies to deal with the revolution going on. A lot of the discussion here presented can be found elsewhere as with Lanier, but the possible ultimate book on this topic, not from a technological side, but from the economic perspective must be “Capital” (2014) by Thomas Piketty that I intend to read after. I’ll have a more in depth look on the ideas presented by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee about future solutions for humans, in terms of learning skills and the rise of solutions where machines and humans work together to achieve the best of both worlds. In my blog in some days.

A useful, accessible, if limited book for these topics. I'm blogging a reading of it right now, so you can find my reactions here.