The Glass Cage: Automation and Us Nicholas Carr

From the best-selling author of The Shallows, an urgent examination of the human consequences of automation.

What kind of world are we building for ourselves? That’s the question Nicholas Carr tackles in this important, absorbing book. Digging behind the headlines about factory robots and self-driving cars, personalized apps and computerized medicine, Carr explores the hidden costs of allowing software to take charge of our jobs and our lives. He draws on science, economics, and philosophy to make a compelling case that the dominant Silicon Valley ethic is sapping our skills and narrowing our horizons.

The Glass Cage is not just a timely critique of society’s growing dependence on computers. It’s a riveting story of humankind’s entanglement with machines. From nineteenth-century textile mills to the cockpits of modern jets, from the frozen hunting grounds of Inuit tribes to the “augmented reality” of Google Glass, Carr takes us on an unforgettable voyage of discovery culminating in a moving meditation on how we can use technology to expand life’s possibilities rather than narrow them.