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Rise of the Robots

Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future

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Rise of the Robots

By: Martin Ford
Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
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About this listen

Winner of the Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award 2015.

In a world of self-driving cars and big data, smart algorithms and Siri, we know that artificial intelligence is getting smarter every day. Though all these nifty devices and programs might make our lives easier, they're also well on their way to making "good" jobs obsolete. A computer winning Jeopardy might seem like a trivial, if impressive, feat, but the same technology is making paralegals redundant as it undertakes electronic discovery and is soon to do the same for radiologists. And that, no doubt, will only be the beginning.

In Silicon Valley the phrase disruptive technology is tossed around on a casual basis. No one doubts that technology has the power to devastate entire industries and upend various sectors of the job market. But Rise of the Robots asks a bigger question: can accelerating technology disrupt our entire economic system to the point where a fundamental restructuring is required? Companies like Facebook and YouTube may need only a handful of employees to achieve enormous valuations, but what will be the fate of those of us not lucky or smart enough to have gotten into the great shift from human labor to computation?

Rise of the Robots is a both an exploration of this new technology and a call to arms to address its implications. Written by a successful Silicon Valley entrepreneur, this is an audiobook that cannot be dismissed as the ranting of a Luddite or an outsider. Ford has seen the future, and he knows that for some of us, the rise of the robots will be very frightening indeed.

©2015 Martin Ford (P)2016 Audible, Ltd
Engineering Technology Computer Science Artificial Intelligence Robotics Inspiring Employment Silicon Valley Thought-Provoking Taxation Business Capitalism

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Critic reviews

"Alarming...surreal...it is time to be afraid, very afraid.... For the moment there is no hope that the rise of the robots will not be accompanied by the fall of the humans." ( Sunday Times Culture)
"The elephant in the room of artificial intelligence is mass obsolescence of the human workforce it threatens to supplant. Ford stares the elephant in the face." ( Observer)
"Packed with irresistible gee-whizz facts but...also anxious about what might happen next, especially to human employment...well worth reading." ( Guardian)
All stars
Most relevant
Well-researched and very convincing. Well written and performed too. Even better than Robots by John Jordan on the same theme.

Very worrying and absolutely cogent

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well presented evidence based speculation on technology and the future within the area. I enjoyed this book not too much soon mongering I especially enjoyed the last chapter.

pretty good speculation

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this is not a work of fiction although the content is reminiscent of sci-fi. this book gave me anxiety... in a good way

great thought provoking book

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A good book overall with some really interesting insights into the development and impact of AI. While informative, I must admit that I am not well-versed enough in the various economic theories to either agree or disagree with the author when he started to digress into various economic theories.

At times I felt the view presented was not well balanced - while references were made to those with alternative beliefs to the author, they were often very briefly mentioned and then discarded.

After passing the half-way mark, I felt the book lost it's way and became a bit of a soapbox. A long diatribe on the US health-care system bore no relation to the title of the book; economic theories were thrown about without (in my view) any clear direction. I found parts of the second-half repetitive and disjointed, and bar a small chapter there seemed to be very little offered to solve the problems the author highlights.

A final point - I found the book to be very US-focused, which I believe limited the discussions and in my opinion presented quite a narrow view point.

Sobering, bordering on panic-mongering

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Far more comprehensive review than I was expecting. A must read for anybody who has any interest in creating a sustainable society, for our generation and the generations to come, in the face of adverse economic conditions instigated by an unpredictable, acceleration 'technology workforce'

The inevitable future of our society in a nutshell

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