What I’m reading this week: “Rise of the Robots,” by Martin Ford.
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Humans have a love-hate relationship with automation. We love automation when it gives us dishwashers, washing machines, and robot vacuum cleaners to relieve the drudgery of menial labors. But we hate automation when it enables telemarketers to endlessly spam our phones, corporations to displace real people’s jobs, and tech companies to surveil our every movement.
Pop culture is replete with nightmare visions of cold robot overlords taking over the world on one hand, and utopian dreams of effortless lives and limitless adventures supported by faithful robot servants on the other. The truth is probably somewhere in between— although robots themselves may never rule the world, the people and organizations who control the most powerful robots almost certainly will.
“Rise of the Robots,” written by economist Martin Ford is a detailed analysis of the current state of play. Will robots dominate society? The answer is yes, they already do. The more pertinent question right now is, who will control the robots? Ford’s book explores this question with skill and keeps it interesting, aside from a few sections that get out into the technical weeds. (He is an economist, after all.) An eye-opening look at the value and risks of living in a roboticized world.
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