• The Second Machine Age

  • Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies
  • By: Erik Brynjolfsson, Andrew McAfee
  • Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
  • Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (1,889 ratings)

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The Second Machine Age  By  cover art

The Second Machine Age

By: Erik Brynjolfsson, Andrew McAfee
Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
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Publisher's summary

Audie Award, Judges' Award: Science & Technology, 2015

A revolution is under way.

In recent years, Google’s autonomous cars have logged thousands of miles on American highways and IBM’s Watson trounced the best human Jeopardy! players. Digital technologies — with hardware, software, and networks at their core — will in the near future diagnose diseases more accurately than doctors can, apply enormous data sets to transform retailing, and accomplish many tasks once considered uniquely human. In The Second Machine Age MIT’s Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee — two thinkers at the forefront of their field — reveal the forces driving the reinvention of our lives and our economy. As the full impact of digital technologies is felt, we will realize immense bounty in the form of dazzling personal technology, advanced infrastructure, and near-boundless access to the cultural items that enrich our lives. Amid this bounty will also be wrenching change. Professions of all kinds — from lawyers to truck drivers — will be forever upended. Companies will be forced to transform or die. Recent economic indicators reflect this shift: Fewer people are working, and wages are falling even as productivity and profits soar.

Drawing on years of research and up-to-the-minute trends, Brynjolfsson and McAfee identify the best strategies for survival and offer a new path to prosperity. These include revamping education so that it prepares people for the next economy instead of the last one, designing new collaborations that pair brute processing power with human ingenuity, and embracing policies that make sense in a radically transformed landscape. A fundamentally optimistic audiobook, The Second Machine Age will alter how we think about issues.

©2014 Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee (P)2013 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

What listeners say about The Second Machine Age

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Amazingly enlightening... exceeded expectations

Would you consider the audio edition of The Second Machine Age to be better than the print version?

Yes

What did you like best about this story?

Not only did the book cover the topic of the technology but it provided great insights backed by statistics for a number of related areas. Best Audible book I have ever listened to.

Any additional comments?

I may go back and listen to it again since there were so many interesting points to digest.

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2 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars

A good, general oversight of the future

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

The references of change in the last decade. I'm a 90's child, and while some of the technological progress and evolution is obvious, some of the developments and 'where we came from' ideals are not. This book made me a bit more aware of the age I'm living in, and the progress that has been made in my lifespan.

Any additional comments?

There are parts of this book that feeling kind of toiling and slow, but the general layout of the references plays well later in the book. The more interesting topics regarding the future are not made until the second half.

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    4 out of 5 stars

Human/machine influences, a 2way street

So intrested in the issues and topics discussed. Narration is 1st class, clearly spoken, easy to understand. Issues identified are so topical you will go back to listen often.

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A Must Read

A succinct and understandable presentation of the current technological trend, and how it will effect our political and economic future.

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Really interesting

the material in this book is intriguing as well as informative... I recommend it for anyone, especially if you are looking to survive the coming changes...

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muy bueno cambia tu perspectiva

excelente libro y como siempre la cuestión de que sea un audio libro facilita para gente como yo el poder leerlo y muy importante leerlo ahora ya con tantos años de su publicación ya que permite que las perspectivas que presente las podemos comparar que vivimos y darnos cuenta que está en lo correcto muy bonito

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Comprehensive

Definitely worth the time. A very comprehensive overview. I liked the tech portions more than the policy portions, but I understand the need to discuss policy as well.

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A brief look at global dynamics

We dive into the dystopian ideas of the future but rationalize our way from them to something not so unfamiliar

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Kurzweil would be proud

The author makes the argument that cutting age inventions like IBM's Watson Jeopardy champion, Google self driving cars and augmentation technologies for things things like vision and hearing are just warm up acts for the massive innovations that the second digital age will bring about. He then does a great job of ores anti g both the utopian Kurzweillian singularity view of the bight future ahead as well as the doom and gloom Ludite view of as Keynes called technological unemployment that will come about as we all struggle to keep ahead of the sun setting of jobs robots will be able to do more reliably and cheaper. The author explores variations on guaranteed income that will be required as the machines take over the average jobs that lead to a widening gap between the smaller minority haves and the majority have nots. This is certainly a optimistic leaning wake up call at what our future may hold that is a very thought provoking read.

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very enlightened

liked that it's a few years old so you can see which predictions are working and which didn't pan out.

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