Only Humans Need Apply: Winners and Losers in the Age of Smart Machines

By Julia Kirby and Thomas H. Davenport

An invigorating, thought-provoking, and positive look at the rise of automation that explores how professionals across industries can find sustainable careers in the near future. Nearly half of all working Americans could risk losing their jobs because of technology. It's not only blue-collar jobs at stake. Millions of educated knowledge workers--writers, paralegals, assistants, medical technicians--are threatened by accelerating advances in artificial intelligence. The industrial revolution shifted workers from farms to factories. In the first era of automation, machines relieved humans of manually exhausting work. Today, Era Two of automation continues to wash across the entire services-based economy that has replaced jobs in agriculture and manufacturing. Era Three, and the rise of AI, is dawning. Smart computers are demonstrating they are capable of making better decisions than humans. Brilliant technologies can now decide, learn, predict, and even comprehend much faster and more accurately than the human brain, and their progress is accelerating. Where will this leave lawyers, nurses, teachers, and editors In Only Humans Need Apply, Thomas Hayes Davenport and Julia Kirby reframe the conversation about automation, arguing that the future of increased productivity and business success isn't either human or machine. It's both. The key is augmentation, utilizing technology to help humans work better, smarter, and faster. Instead of viewing these machines as competitive interlopers, we can see them as partners and collaborators in creative problem solving as we move into the next era. The choice is ours.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0062438611
• ISBN13: 9780062438614
• Release Date: May 2016
• Publisher: Harper Business
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.03 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.3" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

More relevant now than when first issued.

What seemed to be an obscure future is here now with Watson and Skynet. We saw it coming and should have been prepared. The only drawback of the book is that it tries to make the point the hard way with repetition. Well, we need to flesh out the book. So, we can get shocking headlines, the news stations like to call what are “Expert Systems” that can handle or assist a particular skill, AI (Artificial Intelligence), which is a whole different animal. In any event, it is worth the read as it goes in-depth into the fun we face. Today, an AI algorithm can listen to you typing and interpret it. An older concept of us “owning” the machines that work for us can be found in “A Piece of the Action” by Stuart M Speiser. Even though it is dated, it can apply. ISBN-13‏:‎ 978-0442270100 Or after reading this book, if you are paranoid, skip watching “The Terminator” (1984) and watch “The Creation of the Humanoids” (1962), where they take more than our jobs.