The Second Machine Age
| Author | Erik Brynjolfsson Andrew McAfee |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Published | 2014 |
| Publisher | Norton & Company |
| Publication place | United States |
| ISBN | 978-0393239355 |
| Preceded by | Race Against the Machine |
| History of technology |
|---|
The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies is a 2014 book by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee that is a continuation of their book Race Against the Machine. They argue that the Second Machine Age involves the automation of a lot of cognitive tasks that make humans and software-driven machines substitutes, rather than complements. They contrast this with what they call the "First Machine Age", or Industrial Revolution, which helped make labor and machines complementary.
Some examples that the book cites include "software that grades students' essays more objectively, consistently and quickly than humans" and "news articles on Forbes.com about corporate earnings previews" — "all generated by algorithms without human involvement."