Autonomous State

Book review Who Can You Trust by Rachel Botsman published by Portfolio Penguin Reading time: 2 mins “Robots are breaking out of sci-fi culture and engineering labs and moving into our homes, schools, hospitals and businesses.  Now is the moment when we need to pause to consider how much trust we want to place in robots, how human we want them to be, and when we ought to turn them off." The author(s) Rachel Botsman is a visiting academic at the University of Oxford and a well-known figure on the speaking circuit (including multiple TED talks ).   She co-authored the successful book What’s Mine is Yours (2011), about the sharing economy, and has more recently turned her attention to the underlying human and psychological dimensions of economic transactions. In a nutshell This book explores the theory and practice trust.   In particular, it examines the significance of trust in contemporary economies, notably those shaped by the internet, network...

Book review The Silo Effect by Gillian Tett published by Abacus Reading time: 2 mins “W e need specialist, expert teams to function in a complex world.  But we also need to have a joined-up, flexible vision of life.” The author Gillian Tett is the US Managing Editor of The Financial Times.  Originally from the UK, she transferred to the FT’s New York office shortly after the financial crash.  Tett has a background in social anthropology which she uses to good effect in the book. In a nutshell The Silo Effect (TSE) examines the tendency of most (if not all) large organisations to divide into ‘silos’, resulting in poor internal communications and often an unwillingness to share knowledge between teams and departments.  The book challenges the reader to consider the implications of silos and some possible solutions. A recurring theme is the “insider-outsider” perspective, derived from social anthropology.  It emphasises the abilit...

Book review The Signals Are Talking by Amy Webb published by Public Affairs Reading time: 2 mins The author(s) Amy Webb is a futurist writer and academic at New York University (NYU) Stern School of Business .  She is also Founder of the Future Today Institute , which promotes the techniques described in The Signals are Talking (TSAT). In a nutshell TSAT offers a methodology for analysing today’s technology trends with the aim of identifying those most likely to produce mainstream products in the “far” future.  It is written in a non-academic style, accessible to anyone familiar with the most talked about technologies of the past three or four decades. Scope and scale The book tackles a large and relatively nebulous subject, namely the factors determining whether a technology sticks (or twists).  There is some historical narrative going back decades, even hundreds of years, but the focus is largely 21st Century and digital. Webb doesn’t ...

Book review The Quest For Artificial Intelligence by Nils J Nilsson published by Cambridge University Press Reading time: 2 mins The name Nils J Nilsson is almost synonymous with the quest to develop machine intelligence at one of the most productive research hubs in the US,  Stanford University . Nilsson quickly established his reputation in the 1960s as a member of the team responsible for ‘Shakey’, the ground-breaking robot which captured data from sensors, then planned and executed its own routes around the laboratory.  Nilsson’s career never looked back. Author: Nils J Nilsson Fortunately for those of us who are relatively new to AI and data science Professor Nilsson has written a hugely informative research history.    First published in 2009,  The Quest for Artificial Intelligence  has become perhaps the most highly respected of the many AI histories on the market. Nilsson captures the grand sweep of ideas, from Ari...

Book review What To Do When Machines Do Everything by Frank, Roehrig and Pring published by Cambridge University Press Reading time: 4 mins Malcolm Frank, Paul Roehrig and Ben Pring are senior consultants with US technology strategists, Cognizant .  Their 2017 title, What To Do When Machines Do Everything, presents an upbeat case for a future economy in which artificial intelligence (AI) has been widely adopted. This assessment foresees a medium term net increase of 1% in the total number of full-time jobs, in contrast with the gloomier forecasts of many contemporary thinkers, including Martin Ford, whose 2015 best-seller, Rise of the Robots , predicted the onset of mass unemployment. What To Do… has won many plaudits, including book prize nominations, so it’s worth examining the authors’ contribution to the AI debate.  At just 200 pages, it is brief but also compelling. Authors: Ben Pring, Paul Roehrig and Malcolm Frank Technological revolut...

Book review Rise of the Robots by Martin Ford published by Oneworld Reading time: 3 mins Martin Ford is a technologist and futurist writer with a background in west coast software engineering.  In 2015 his second book, Rise of the Robots , won the prestigious FT/McKinsey Business Book of the Year, prompting a global debate about its conclusions. Rise of the Robots became a must-read for anyone concerned with the impact of artificial intelligence on society.  In a wide-ranging and well-researched survey of the relationship between technological progress and economic history, Ford extrapolates his logic to paint a disturbing future. Ford argues that, unlike all previous technological revolutions, AI will fail to generate an increase in shared national wealth.  In fact, there will be very high levels of unemployment.   The AI revolution is different, he claims, because of the way it is expected to transform the workplace, undermining the skills...