“Futureproof: 9 Rules for Humans in the Age of Automation” – a book review

“Futureproof: 9 Rules for Humans in the Age of Automation”

By Kevin Roose, Random House, NY (2021), 217 pages.

There are many books out there on Artificial Intelligence (AI), automation, robotics, and the future. Therefore, when you write another book about that topic, it had better be different and important.

“Futureproof: 9 Rules For Humans in the Age of Automation” manages to do this and makes some compelling points about a subject everyone loves debating about, but no one quite has clarity about.

Kevin Roose, a technology columnist with the New York Times, tackles one of the key questions of any generation, most crucially ours- How will AI and technology affect our lives? Will robots replace many of our jobs? Can we do anything about it? Roose's answer is 2 x YES!

The author starts from the vantage point of a skeptic- questioning the narrative that technology change will create more careers than it destroys, and examining the wide gap between what entrepreneurs and companies promise AI can do (only nice things- make everyone’s lives easier), and what it does (enables mass layoffs, spreads misinformation and makes humans subservient to algorithms).

Roose advises people to bring ‘humanity back to their jobs- be personal, be caring, be sensitive- bring the human touch to everything you do, and technology can never fully replace you. He questions some fundamental assumptions as well. Is having no friction the best technological experience? When you remove all friction from an experience, is the resulting addiction good? Is the tech in control, or is the user?

In his book, Roose drives home two points. A) The AI revolution is not coming, or some faraway winter we have to prepare for. It is here, it is affecting us today, and we have to prepare accordingly today. B) AI and robots are not going to magically take away all jobs and make millions redundant. They will do so if the people running these companies want to make millions redundant. It finally boils down to humans one way or the other, and there are lots of things we can do to combat it.

Kevin Roose gave me insight into three types of algorithms:

• 1.       Algorithms that optimize my mind (production efficiency)
• 2.       Algorithms that read my mind (predict my future needs)
• 3.       Algorithms that change my mind (nudge me to new choices/opinions/behaviors)

I am thankful for The New York Times’ algorithm that predicted my need and nudged me to buy the book. I hope this human-written note may optimize your mind to read the book!