Scan barcode
tadpoleon's review against another edition
5.0
Very thought provoking and changed some of my views on digital. Loved the summary and questions at the end of each chapter...really brought it to life.
artex's review against another edition
I put this book out of conceptual-ideation shelf (kinda implicative book review).
mattneely's review against another edition
4.0
I felt a pivot mid-way from futurism to a more typical business book. Good examples in each section.
hilaryjsc's review against another edition
4.0
The four stars is mostly for the "Machine" section, which was what I was really interested in, but there was also some really interesting/thought provoking material in the rest too.
bub_9's review against another edition
4.0
Amusingly, I think this work had already aged sufficiently by the time I read it (let alone writing the review now) that it no longer really felt fresh, original, or truly insightful.
Nonetheless, I think the authors' work here is very commendable. It's written in very accessible language that still captures many of the technological complexities of these issues. In particular, I think the section of Platform really sheds much light on this very (and newly) important area of our economy.
I do think it's a bit prone to techno-optimism, but I also think that since this isn't a vision of society, only the corporate world, that isn't that much of a sin. Still a work I would recommend to general readers.
Nonetheless, I think the authors' work here is very commendable. It's written in very accessible language that still captures many of the technological complexities of these issues. In particular, I think the section of Platform really sheds much light on this very (and newly) important area of our economy.
I do think it's a bit prone to techno-optimism, but I also think that since this isn't a vision of society, only the corporate world, that isn't that much of a sin. Still a work I would recommend to general readers.
sbenzell's review against another edition
5.0
Very well written summary of research and expert opinion on the changing nature of economics and business. Highly recommended to both researchers and the layperson.
The book is divided into three sections based on the themes in the title. The most interesting are the sections on robots and platforms. The section on crowds seems comparitively less important, and is much more thin on material.
In the machine section, three big insights stick with me.
1) Robot decision makers often outperform humans. Use more of it when the task has clear inputs, outputs, and decision criteria. Human intuition can be used as an input to decision making, or override it as a 'sanity checker', but shouldn't be elevated above it in routine situations.
2) Many jobs have some component which is automatable. The challenge moving forward will not be what jobs will be automated, but how to change jobs so that the automatable part can be sliced off.
3) New advances in machine vision have the potential to launch a Cambrian Explosion in the variety of tasks robots can do.
When I spoke to Erik recently, he said of Marshall Van Alstyne: "He's a great researcher, but he thinks platforms are everything." To this I responded, "Yep, that's incorrect, according to your book, they're 1/3 of things."
The novel touches lots of familiar ground in the platform section. The parts I found most novel were in thinking about how digital platforms differ from digital-to-physical platforms in dealing with the newspaper vendor problem. There was also some very sketched remarks about when, as an established brand, to join on with a platform (vs. insisting on working independently). Both of these lines of reasoning seem like productive research directions.
The final section, on crowdsourcing, seems much less important. To me at least, Kickstarter (and its brethren) seems like it will continue to be a niche method of financing projects. Meanwhile, the rest of the section, is mainly a list of types of tasks that can be crowdourced. None of this seemed particularly revolutionary. In a Coasian sense, its just some additional activities being outsourced, because negotiation/communication costs have been lowered for outside temp workers.
As far as I can understand, the main objection to this book is that it recycles a lot of material that had been used in previous works by the authors. Although I have read some of that, I have not read Second Machine Age. So I do not know how much of this is a repeat of that.
The book is divided into three sections based on the themes in the title. The most interesting are the sections on robots and platforms. The section on crowds seems comparitively less important, and is much more thin on material.
In the machine section, three big insights stick with me.
1) Robot decision makers often outperform humans. Use more of it when the task has clear inputs, outputs, and decision criteria. Human intuition can be used as an input to decision making, or override it as a 'sanity checker', but shouldn't be elevated above it in routine situations.
2) Many jobs have some component which is automatable. The challenge moving forward will not be what jobs will be automated, but how to change jobs so that the automatable part can be sliced off.
3) New advances in machine vision have the potential to launch a Cambrian Explosion in the variety of tasks robots can do.
When I spoke to Erik recently, he said of Marshall Van Alstyne: "He's a great researcher, but he thinks platforms are everything." To this I responded, "Yep, that's incorrect, according to your book, they're 1/3 of things."
The novel touches lots of familiar ground in the platform section. The parts I found most novel were in thinking about how digital platforms differ from digital-to-physical platforms in dealing with the newspaper vendor problem. There was also some very sketched remarks about when, as an established brand, to join on with a platform (vs. insisting on working independently). Both of these lines of reasoning seem like productive research directions.
The final section, on crowdsourcing, seems much less important. To me at least, Kickstarter (and its brethren) seems like it will continue to be a niche method of financing projects. Meanwhile, the rest of the section, is mainly a list of types of tasks that can be crowdourced. None of this seemed particularly revolutionary. In a Coasian sense, its just some additional activities being outsourced, because negotiation/communication costs have been lowered for outside temp workers.
As far as I can understand, the main objection to this book is that it recycles a lot of material that had been used in previous works by the authors. Although I have read some of that, I have not read Second Machine Age. So I do not know how much of this is a repeat of that.
jasonfurman's review against another edition
5.0
Machine, Platform, Crowd is insightful, engagingly written, a nice combination of economics, business, technology and real world examples, that builds on The Second Machine Age. Eric Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee organize their book around three developments: artificial intelligence, platform technologies and crowd sourcing. The book is "speaking" to managers of businesses, talking about how they can take advantage of these developments in their own businesses. Brynjolfsson and McAfee have no shortage of enthusiasm for these developments but in all cases they present nuanced arguments about the perils of the extremes, like the importance of humans in organizations, the limits of platforms, and the best ways to combine the "crowd" and the "core." They are techno-optimists but also realists, the world they describe is much like our own, with companies, markets, and the like, just all continuing to improve through technology, big data, the cloud, and the like.
Brynjolfsson and McAfee put it very well when they say that it makes no sense to ask if technology will be good or bad for us, because technology is a tool and we can make choices about how to use the tool. The book, however, focuses on how businesses make those choices and the role of policymakers was outside of its scope.
My big disappointment was that no where in the book did the authors grapple with the significant slowdown in productivity growth, why they think it is happening, what they think the outlook is. And not just the aggregate macroeconomic data, but also the increased effort it takes to make progress in individual areas. They have a striking description of how AI is advancing productivity in farming--but they do not point out that we have been making progress in farming for over a century but despite the massive technology we are bringing to bear the progress is not getting any faster.
Brynjolfsson and McAfee put it very well when they say that it makes no sense to ask if technology will be good or bad for us, because technology is a tool and we can make choices about how to use the tool. The book, however, focuses on how businesses make those choices and the role of policymakers was outside of its scope.
My big disappointment was that no where in the book did the authors grapple with the significant slowdown in productivity growth, why they think it is happening, what they think the outlook is. And not just the aggregate macroeconomic data, but also the increased effort it takes to make progress in individual areas. They have a striking description of how AI is advancing productivity in farming--but they do not point out that we have been making progress in farming for over a century but despite the massive technology we are bringing to bear the progress is not getting any faster.
ptaradactyl's review against another edition
1.0
Ugh. So technochauvenistic. So naive. So enamored with a mythological free market.
How does a book published in 2017 mention advertising in apps but fail to discuss data aggregation? How can it naively espouse that generally, it’s safe to assume that all online actors generally have good intents? Spam and scams and trolls have been around for longer than that...
It’s as if they deliberately ignore any potential issues with their chosen model in order to hype it, complete with discussion questions to reinforce their points.
I came across this critique of platforms as free markets, also from 2017, that is absolutely worth a read to chase away the sheltered tech booster nonsense. Worth a read
https://medium.com/humane-tech/tech-and-the-fake-market-tactic-8bd386e3d382
How does a book published in 2017 mention advertising in apps but fail to discuss data aggregation? How can it naively espouse that generally, it’s safe to assume that all online actors generally have good intents? Spam and scams and trolls have been around for longer than that...
It’s as if they deliberately ignore any potential issues with their chosen model in order to hype it, complete with discussion questions to reinforce their points.
I came across this critique of platforms as free markets, also from 2017, that is absolutely worth a read to chase away the sheltered tech booster nonsense. Worth a read
https://medium.com/humane-tech/tech-and-the-fake-market-tactic-8bd386e3d382