The Glass Cage: Automation and Us
Nicholas Carr
(Author)
Description
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.
Product Details
Price
$26.95
$25.06
Publisher
W. W. Norton & Company
Publish Date
September 29, 2014
Pages
288
Dimensions
6.6 X 0.8 X 9.6 inches | 1.25 pounds
Language
English
Type
Hardcover
EAN/UPC
9780393240764
BISAC Categories:
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About the Author
Nicholas Carr is the author of The Shallows, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, The Glass Cage, and Utopia is Creepy. He has written for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Atlantic, and Wired. He lives in Massachusetts with his wife.
Reviews
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.
Nick Carr is our most informed, intelligent critic of technology. Since we are going to automate everything, Carr persuades us that we should do it wisely--with mindful automation. Carr's human-centric technological future is one you might actually want to live in.--Kevin Kelly, Senior Maverick for Wired Magazine and author of What Technology Wants
Helps us appreciate why so-called gains of 'superior results' can come with a steep price of hard-to-see tradeoffs that are no less potent for being subtle and nuanced.--Evan Seliger
Smart, insightful... paint[s] a portrait of a world readily handing itself over to intelligent devices.--Jacob Axelrad
One of Carr's great strengths as a critic is the measured calm of his approach to his material--a rare thing in debates over technology... Carr excels at exploring these gray areas and illuminating for readers the intangible things we are losing by automating our lives.--Christine Rosen, Democracy
There have been few cautionary voices like Nicholas Carr's urging us to take stock, especially, of the effects of automation on our very humanness--what makes us who we are as individuals--and on our humanity--what makes us who we are in aggregate.--Sue Halpern
The Glass Cage is a worthy antidote to the relentlessly hopeful futurism of Google, TED Talks and Walt Disney... The same way no popular conversation on cloning can be had without bringing to mind Michael Crichton's techno-jeremiad Jurassic Park, Carr's book is positioned to stake out similar ground: To suggest moral restraint on future development with a well-timed and well-placed 'what-if?'--James Janega
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.
Nick Carr is our most informed, intelligent critic of technology. Since we are going to automate everything, Carr persuades us that we should do it wisely--with mindful automation. Carr's human-centric technological future is one you might actually want to live in.--Kevin Kelly, Senior Maverick for Wired Magazine and author of What Technology Wants
Helps us appreciate why so-called gains of 'superior results' can come with a steep price of hard-to-see tradeoffs that are no less potent for being subtle and nuanced.--Evan Seliger
Smart, insightful... paint[s] a portrait of a world readily handing itself over to intelligent devices.--Jacob Axelrad
One of Carr's great strengths as a critic is the measured calm of his approach to his material--a rare thing in debates over technology... Carr excels at exploring these gray areas and illuminating for readers the intangible things we are losing by automating our lives.--Christine Rosen, Democracy
There have been few cautionary voices like Nicholas Carr's urging us to take stock, especially, of the effects of automation on our very humanness--what makes us who we are as individuals--and on our humanity--what makes us who we are in aggregate.--Sue Halpern
The Glass Cage is a worthy antidote to the relentlessly hopeful futurism of Google, TED Talks and Walt Disney... The same way no popular conversation on cloning can be had without bringing to mind Michael Crichton's techno-jeremiad Jurassic Park, Carr's book is positioned to stake out similar ground: To suggest moral restraint on future development with a well-timed and well-placed 'what-if?'--James Janega
