Minds and Machines

A few months ago, Andy McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson published Machine, Platform, Crowd: Harnessing Our Digital Future, - their third book on the impact of the 21st century digital revolution on the economy and society, - following the publication of The Second Machine Age in 2014 and Race Against the Machine in 2011. Brynjolfsson and McAfee are professor and research scientist respectively at MIT's Sloan School of Management, as well as co-Directors of MIT's Initiative on the Digital Economy. The book is organized into three sections, each focused on a major trend that's reshaping the business world: the rapidly expanding capabilities of machines; the emergence of large, asset-light platform companies; and the ability to now leverage the knowledge, expertise and enthusiasm of the crowd. These three trends are combining into a triple revolution, causing companies to rethink the balance between minds and machines; between products and platforms; and between the core and the crowd. I cannot possible do justice to all three trends in one blog, so let me summarize the key themes of the Mind and Machine section, which I found to be an excellent explanation of the current state of AI.