Who needs humans anyway?

That’s the subtle for ‘The Glass Cage’ written by Nicolas Carr in 2015, which is not like other books written about the future with technology, it comes from a different angle.

It’s still a book about automation, about the use of technology, computers, and software to do things we used to do ourselves.

But it’s not about the technology or the economics of automation, nor is it about the future of robots and cyborgs.

It’s about automation’s human consequences. A good example used in the book is airplanes.

It’s over 100 years ago since automation was first used in an aircraft.

In 1914 pilot and inventor Laurence Sperry invented a device to automatically correct their plane when it went off course, allowing him to climb out on the wing to let the plane fly itself for a time.

It took a further 20 years of testing and refinement before the invention was adopted by commercial airlines, and today, planes virtually fly themselves with little human interaction.

But the strange thing is, we’re way behind this aviation technology when it comes to driverless vehicles, and only in recent times have the likes of Google progressed things.

The questions the book raises are moral ones, can machine automation ever make the moral decisions humans can make?

What would a driver-less car choose, given a split-second choice between hitting a person or swerving and plunging the car with its occupants over a bridge to their death.

We’re looking at computers to shoulder more of our work and guide us through more of our everyday routines.

The book takes a close look at how computers and automation are changing what we do and who we are, and there are some deep hidden effects to be discovered.

It’s a really good read, looking at the future from a moral perspective rather than an economic one, which creates so many unanswered questions.

‘The Glass Cage’ gets a thumbs up and 5 stars.

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