Book Reviews
AI and Job Loss (Kai-Fu Lee Echoes the Wisdom of Jesus)
There is growing concern about an AI-driven future in which there aren’t enough jobs to go around. Not just a shortage of good jobs, mind you, but a shortage of jobs, period. A swelling chorus of economists and other experts foresee a future in which highly-skilled,...
The Social Media Peril — Part III
Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe, by Roger McNamee Zucked is Roger McNamee’s narrative of a good romance gone bad — except that the behaviors that led to the relationship breakup happen to be global, not personal. McNamee is a long-time, prominent member...
The Social Media Peril — Part II
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power, by Shoshana Zuboff Of the three books under review, Shoshana Zuboff’s is easily the most distinctive. In The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at...
The Social Media Peril — Part I
Anti-Social Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy, Siva Vaidhyanathan The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power, Shoshana Zuboff Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe, Roger McNamee...
Turned On: Science, Sex and Robots
For those drawn to the ‘sex and robots’ topic of Kate Devlin’s new book, the large majority will come away disappointed. Why? Mostly because Devlin is an academic. Her book is a broad survey of the field (actually, of several fields), often reporting on the work of...
Prediction Machines: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence
Three economists, Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans, and Avi Goldfarb, teamed up to write Prediction Machines: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence. Maybe it’s not surprising, then, that their book boils down to three foundational insights: New...