Monday, July 1, 2013

Creating With The Machines


The Luddites were a group of expert weavers in the 19th century who, upon seeing that the invention of the factory loom had made their skills obsolete, smashed the machines in protest.  Ever since, “Luddites” has become a disparaging term for those who fear technological advance.
As I wrote previously in Forbes, we all luddites now, at least in the sense that many of the hard won skills that we’ve come to depend on for income and social status are now being automated.
MIT's Erik brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee have argued that the solution is to learn to “race with the machines;” to become less like the mythical John Henry struggling to outdo a steam hammer and more like an Indy car driver, using technology to race at incredible speed.  If so, we will need to not only redefine work, but ourselves as well.


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