‘The Glass Cage’ review: automation is making us stupid
See the original posting on The Verge
Google Maps is making me stupid, about that I have no doubt. After getting out of the subway, Ill frequently follow my phones blue arrow for a block in the wrong direction before the GPS catches up and turns me around. This happens embarrassingly often, despite having lived in New York for years and being surrounded by landmarks like the Empire State Building.
Its lapses like these that Nicholas Carr warns about in his new book, The Glass Cage, which gives automation the same skeptical treatment that his 2010 book, The Shallows, gave the internet. He paints a scary picture. Planes are crashing as pilots are lulled into a stupor by autopilot. Financial markets flirt with disaster as traders place too much faith in algorithms they…