Argues that we can better understand the challenges provided by new technology and AI to the future of work by drawing on the lessons of the past.
Carl Benedikt Frey is the Oxford Martin Citi Fellow and codirector of the Oxford Martin Programme on Technology and Employment at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford. He is also a senior fellow at the Institute for New Economic Thinking at Oxford and in the Department of Economic History at Lund University. Twitter @carlbfrey
"Co-Winner of the Silver Medal in Business Technology, Axiom
Business Book Awards"
"One of the Financial Times' Summer Books of 2019: Business"
"One of the Financial Times' Best Books of 2019: Technology"
"12 must-read books for 2019 as recommended by Tech Crunch's Extra
Crunch readers"
"One of Five Books' Best Economics Books of 2019"
"University of Chicago 2019 Recommended Reading"
"One of Handelsblatt's Best Technology Books of 2019"
"One of Época Negócios's Best Books of 2019"
"A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year"
"A Project Syndicate Best Read in 2019"
"A Financial Times Best Book of the Year"
"Winner of the Richard A. Lester Prize for the Outstanding Book in
Industrial Relations and Labor Economics, Industrial Relations
Section of Princeton University"
"A superb guide to 21st-century automation and its disruptive
effects."---John Harris, The Guardian
"The Technology Trap may well ensnare doom-seekers’ attention with
its ominous-sounding title. But it should ultimately hearten anyone
who reads it."
*The Economist*
"Anybody interested in the economic impact of digital and AI, in
particular on jobs, will want to read [The Technology
Trap]."---Diane Coyle, Enlightened Economist
"[Frey] takes a provocative, original long view on current
concerns, examining the fallout from past technological advances .
. . to mass production and artificial intelligence."---Andrew Hill,
Financial Times, Summer Books of 2019
"I have been lost in [The Technology Trap] for the last 10
days."---John Harris, The Guardian
"Frey’s analysis is worth taking seriously because the Oxford
economic historian and economist has researched his subject deeply
and has co-authored one of the most widely cited studies on
automation . . . . Frey’s story is well argued and — at times —
deeply alarming about the stability of western democracies given he
predicts the further concentration of wealth in a few hands and in
even fewer locations"---John Thornhill, Financial Times
"An excellent analysis of past industrial revolutions, the
technologies that emerged within them, and the way societies
adapted to those changes."---Adi Gaskell, Forbes
"As [Frey] points out in his new book The Technology Trap, for all
that the robots may make the world more local, they may have other
painful side-effects, putting millions of people out of work and
sparking an almighty backlash."---Ed Conway, The Times
"The Technology Trap is the perfect book for higher ed people to
read . . . . deeply researched and [convincingly] argued."---Joshua
Kim, Inside Higher Education
"If you're an optimist about the robotic future, you likely hear
talk that we're all going to lose our jobs or suffer a big pay cut,
and tell friends to relax — the new technology revolution is going
to turn out like all the others since the dawn of the Industrial
Age. But if history is your best hope, you should probably think
again: [The Technology Trap has] a strong case."---Steve Levine,
Axios
"Anybody interested in the economic impact of digital and AI, in
particular on jobs, will want to read Carl Frey’s new
book."---Diane Coyle, Enlightened Economist
"In his bracing new book The Technology Trap, Carl Frey
extrapolates from the history of the industrial revolution to offer
a vision of the future in which Amazon Go, AI assistants and
autonomous vehicles are 'worker replacement' technologies."---Greg
Williams, Wired
"A fascinating history of technical change."---Chris Dillow,
Stumbling and Mumbling
"One of Frey’s most salient points is that our attitudes and
actions toward technology can play a pivotal role in how it impacts
us. A lot of stock has been put into Frey and Osborne’s prediction
of 47 percent automation. But if Frey’s book gets even half the
attention the paper got, it should serve to quell some of our fears
around a bleak machine-dominated future."---Vanessa Bates Ramirez,
Singularity Hub
"Carl Benedikt Frey has written an important and timely book . . .
. A great deal of effort, thought, and scholarship went into its
writing, and it shows. There is much food for thought here and I
can envision this assigned in upper division economics classes as
well as some graduate courses."---Alexander Field, EH.net
"Frey offers a refreshingly human-centered analysis of
technological progress."---Oscar Schwartz, Stanford Social
Innovation Review
"It’s clear The Technology Trap has plenty to teach us, and should
automatically be on the reading list of any serious policy maker or
politician."---Ben Ramanauskas, Cap X
"Frey explores automation and its consequences, taking the reader
on a long sweep of UK and US industrial history that demonstrates
the distinction between labour-enabling and labour-replacing
technologies. . . As arguably the most comprehensive account of
automation to date, this book deserves to be read widely"---Liam
Kennedy, London School of Economics Review of Books
"[The Technology Trap] offers a fascinating history of technology’s
effects on employment from the Industrial Revolution to today and
attempts to tackle how we might avoid a repeat of past social ills,
as the Computer Revolution sweeps away a majority of human
jobs."---Robert Elliott Smith, Medium
"Narrator Richard Lyddon performs an almost impossible feat—making
a very theoretical audiobook sound absorbable in a truly
entertaining way . . . . Cheers to both Frey and Lyddon, a pairing
that listeners may wish to hear again."
*AudioFile Magazine*
"An extremely useful history of the effect of technology on jobs
and income inequality."---John Judis, The National Interest
"[E]rudite and thoughtful, and the questions [The Technology Trap]
raises are important and pertinent."---Joel Mokyr, Journal of
Economic History
"[Frey] investigates the short, medium, and long-term consequences
of the Industrial Revolution on workers, finding that in fact the
changes had extraordinarily negative consequences in the short
term. His lessons from this pivotal moment in history can help
technology leaders avoid the biggest risks today in how we design
human/AI systems in the coming age of automation."
*TechCrunch*
"I highly recommend [The Technology Trap]."---Randal C. Picker
"There is little reason to doubt the contemporary relevance of
Frey’s analysis into the consequences of automation on the labour
market, and the broader socio‐political implications of those
technological changes which are highly anticipated to reshape our
working lives and economic existence as we know it. The voluminous
public commentary about technology, and public protests against the
ramifications of technology change (such as taxi drivers decrying
peer‐to‐peer ride‐sharing services which rely on smartphone apps),
serve as sufficient warrant to pay attention to Frey’s
contribution."---Mikayla Novak, Economic Record
"Excellently written, full of examples and studies I hadn't
previously encountered, and I learned a lot."---Tim Harford
"[The Technology Trap] is a reminder that the future of work
depends on policy choices. It is well worth reading."---Ravi
Venkatesan, Book Review Literacy Trust
"A . . . danger is that Luddite efforts to avoid the short-term
costs associated with a new technology will end up denying access
to its long-term benefits—something Carl Benedikt Frey, an Oxford
academic, calls a 'technology trap'."
*The Economist*
"Excellent."---Masood Ahmed, CGD Policy Blog
"Magisterial."---Chris Gibbons, Acumen
"Frey’s observations and detailed historical analysis are useful
for even those of us who cling to a more optimistic view of the
long run."---Micheal Munger, Law & Liberty
"[A] historical odyssey."---Jane Humphries and Benjamin Schneider,
Project Syndicate
"Frey provides a longue durée examination of the economic, social,
and political interplay that drives technological change. Careful,
erudite, elegantly written, and full of insight, the book sets the
current overwrought debate about automation and AI on a firm
contextualized footing."---Jayati Ghosh, Project Syndicate
"Frey’s book is a history with a policy purpose . . . the book
reveals an enormous scope of reading."---Kenneth Lipartito,
American Historical Review
"I was hugely impressed by this well-researched book, which
provides a fascinating historical analysis of the interplay between
government policy and technical change around the world. At the
same time, it provides clues about how similar dynamics may shape
the ongoing wave of automation, and what that might mean for wealth
distribution within and among countries."---Sami Mahroum, Project
Syndicate
"Even when we learned enough about how the world works to change
and manipulate it — to disrupt the status quo — stasis had its
defenders. And it still does today. So many historical examples of
this in the great 2019 book, The Technology Trap."---James
Pethokoukis, AEI
"The Technology Trap offers a rich account of the history of
automation. . . . If anything, the corona-crisis has made this 2019
publication even more relevant. The lockdowns will likely
accelerate automation in the workplace, and in the wake of the
resulting economic decline and rising unemployment, questions
around jobs and automation will become more politically fraught
than they had been up to now."---Justin Nogarede, The Progressive
Post
"’The Technology Trap’ . . . made me look at the industrial
revolution, invention, sleeping beauties, contexts and the forces
that shape our societies differently. . . . Techies and economists
love to point out that the textile machines the Luddites opposed in
the 19th century brought greater prosperity to all — but it took
three generations before the benefits kicked in, and there was a
lot of pain and suffering in the meantime. And as Frey points out,
history is made in the short term."---David Byrne, New York Times
Book Review
"A powerful historical synthesis on the question of the
relationship between man and machine."
*Wall Street Journal*
|
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
