The Glass Cage – Automation and Us - Hardcover

Carr, Nicholas

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393240762 ISBN 13: 9780393240764

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2014

Synopsis

In The Glass Cage, best-selling author Nicholas Carr digs behind the headlines about factory robots and self-driving cars, wearable computers and digitized medicine, as he explores the hidden costs of granting software dominion over our work and our leisure. Even as they bring ease to our lives, these programs are stealing something essential from us. Drawing on psychological and neurological studies that underscore how tightly people's happiness and satisfaction are tied to performing hard work in the real world, Carr reveals something we already suspect: shifting our attention to computer screens can leave us disengaged and discontented. From nineteenth-century textile mills to the cockpits of modern jets, from the frozen hunting grounds of Inuit tribes to the sterile landscapes of GPS maps, The Glass Cage explores the impact of automation from a deeply human perspective, examining the personal as well as the economic consequences of our growing dependence on computers. With a characteristic blend of history and philosophy, poetry and science, Carr takes us on a journey from the work and early theory of Adam Smith and Alfred North Whitehead to the latest research into human attention, memory, and happiness, culminating in a moving meditation on how we can use technology to expand the human experience.

About this title

Review:

Most of us, myself included, are too busy tweeting to notice our march into technological dehumanization. Nicholas Carr applies the brakes for us (and our self-driving cars).--Gary Shteyngart, author of Little Failure

Carr brilliantly and scrupulously explores all the psychological and economic angles of our increasingly problematic reliance on machinery and microchips to manage almost every aspect of our lives. A must-read for software engineers and technology experts in all corners of industry as well as everyone who finds himself or herself increasingly dependent on and addicted to gadgets.

Fresh and powerful.--Mark Bauerlein

A sobering new analysis of the hazards of intelligent technology.--Hiawatha Bray

A stimulating, absorbing read.--Michelle Scheraga

[A] deeply informed reflection on computer automation.--G. Pascal Zachary

Forces the reader to think about where we're going, how fast, and what it all means.--Phil Simon

Brings a much-needed humanistic perspective to the wider issues of automation.--Richard Waters

Artificial intelligence has that name for a reason--it isn't natural, it isn't human. As Nicholas Carr argues so gracefully and convincingly in this important, insightful book, it is time for people to regain the art of thinking. It is time to invent a world where machines are subservient to the needs and wishes of humanity.--Don Norman, author of Things that Make Us Smart and Design of Everyday Things, director of the University of California San Diego Design Lab

Engaging, informative ...Carr deftly incorporates hard research and historical developments with philosophy and prose to depict how technology is changing the way we live our lives.

Book Description:

A panoramic exposé of the decision-making software running our lives – and how it is changing us all.

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0393240762
• ISBN 13: 9780393240764
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288