A great interview with Race Against the Machine author, Andrew McAfee is available at the Surprisingly Free podcast site. “Surprisingly Free”, is a podcast from The Mercatus Center at George Mason University that discusses topics with “an eclectic mix of authors, academics, and entrepreneurs at the intersection of technology, policy, and economics.” Guests have included Nick Carr, Tyler Cowen, Kevin Kelly, Evgeny Morozov, William Powers, Clay Shirky, Danny Sullivan, Tim Wu and many others.
They’ve just posted a conversation between Andrew McAfee and host Jerry Brito about the ideas we explored in Race Against the Machine. According to McAfee, "Jerry did a great job, asking excellent questions and refusing to settle for sound bites. It was a real pleasure to talk with him, and I predict you’ll find it engaging if you give it a listen".
A lot of ground was covered, including
- The rise in US inequality and why we should care about it.
- The upsides and downsides of fast technological progress.
- How education needs to change.
- The similarities and differences between Race Against the Machine and Tyler Cowen’s The Great Stagnation.
- How people can race with machines instead of against them.
Andrew McAfee, Principal Research Scientist at MIT’s Center for Digital Business, discusses his new book, co-authored with Erik Brynjolfsson, entitled, “Race Against the Machine: How the Digital Revolution is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy.” The book looks at the interplay between unemployment and fast-paced technological innovation.
In the book, McAfee and Brynjolfsson propose that technology is outpacing humans, and they discuss whether humans can keep up. According to McAfee, technology is encroaching on skills that once belonged exclusively to humans. He believes that entrepreneurial thinking, different institutions, and new organizational structures can prevent humans from being left behind by the machines.
According to us, Race Against the Machine may shape up to be this Century's 'Wealth of Nations,' marking the dramatic and explosive changes in the economy brought about by exponentially-growing technology, artificial intelligence, and automation.
If you’re interested in these topics, the downloadable podcast is available here. And if you’d like to further the discussion, leave a comment or question on this post.
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