Average Is Over

"Average is Over" by Tyler Cowen. It maybe isn't revolutionary, but it tied up a LOT of loose ends in my head about where we are and where things are most likely headed. His thesis statement is that scientific and social progress is now largely in the hands of AI and that those best able to utilize those technologies to augment their decisions, and everyone else will suffer. I think he overestimates AI in the short term, but in the long term, I don't see how he's wrong. I've started to study AI again (having worked in an AI lab 20 years ago). From Wikipeida: Cowen forecasts that modern economies are delaminating into two groups: a small minority of highly educated people who are capable of working collaboratively with automated systems will become a wealthy aristocracy; the vast majority will earn little or nothing, surviving on low-priced goods created by the first group, living in shantytowns working with highly automated production systems.

Average is Over by Tyler Cowen. About educated middle class workers working with collaborative automated systems vs non-educated and a changing society. Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson. An allegory about how our modern jobs are changing. Mindset by Carol Dweck. About the belief of fixed mindset vs a growth or learning mindset, and the effects of both. The Icarus Deception by Seth Godin. How our industrial (conformity) economy has evolved into a connection (post-industrial) economy, and what it takes to survive in this new world.