In The Second Machine Age, Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee consider how digital technology is reinventing our lives and the economy. They claim that it is something like the third industrial revolution – a second machine age of innovation spurred by exponential growth in computing and machine learning power, artificial intelligence, and robotics. This marks a paradigm shift with huge benefits such as increased productivity, inventing creative solutions to age-old problems. However, it does pose immense challenges as well, with the primary one being massive job displacement, which easily serves to widen the already existing inequality. This book illustrates insight in how we can take these technologies to the service of good, ensuring that benefits are wide-sharing, and that societies adapt positively to these monumental changes.
