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Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity
The bestselling co-author of Why Nations Fail and the bestselling co-author of 13 Bankers deliver a bold reinterpretation of economics and history that will fundamentally change how you see the world
A thousand years of history and contemporary evidence make one thing clear. Progress depends on the choices we make about technology. New ways of organizing production and communication can either serve the narrow interests of an elite or become the foundation for widespread prosperity.
The wealth generated by technological improvements in agriculture during the European Middle Ages was captured by the nobility and used to build grand cathedrals while peasants remained on the edge of starvation. The first hundred years of industrialization in England delivered stagnant incomes for working people. And throughout the world today, digital technologies and artificial intelligence undermine jobs and democracy through excessive automation, massive data collection, and intrusive surveillance.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Power and Progress demonstrates that the path of technology was once—and may again be—brought under control. The tremendous computing advances of the last half century can become empowering and democratizing tools, but not if all major decisions remain in the hands of a few hubristic tech leaders.
With their breakthrough economic theory and manifesto for a better society, Acemoglu and Johnson provide the vision needed to reshape how we innovate and who really gains from technological advances.
A thousand years of history and contemporary evidence make one thing clear. Progress depends on the choices we make about technology. New ways of organizing production and communication can either serve the narrow interests of an elite or become the foundation for widespread prosperity.
The wealth generated by technological improvements in agriculture during the European Middle Ages was captured by the nobility and used to build grand cathedrals while peasants remained on the edge of starvation. The first hundred years of industrialization in England delivered stagnant incomes for working people. And throughout the world today, digital technologies and artificial intelligence undermine jobs and democracy through excessive automation, massive data collection, and intrusive surveillance.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Power and Progress demonstrates that the path of technology was once—and may again be—brought under control. The tremendous computing advances of the last half century can become empowering and democratizing tools, but not if all major decisions remain in the hands of a few hubristic tech leaders.
With their breakthrough economic theory and manifesto for a better society, Acemoglu and Johnson provide the vision needed to reshape how we innovate and who really gains from technological advances.
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First published May 16, 2023
About the author
Daron Acemoğlu
71 books1,523 followersDaron Acemoglu is the Elizabeth and James Killian Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2005 he won the prestigious John Bates Clark medal, awarded to the best economist under 40.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 99 reviews
March 20, 2024
کتاب خوبی بود. در چند روز آینده ریویوی آن را خواهم نوشت
August 17, 2023
Ever wondered how tech revolutions, from the humble plow to today's smartphones, impacted the average person? Well, 'Power and Progress' is like this time-traveling tour, stopping at all the big game-changing moments: farming breakthroughs, steam power, the huge buzz of the Industrial Revolution, and of course, our modern smartphone craze. But here's the kicker – the book doesn't just geek out over the gadgets and innovations; it dives deep into who really got the better end of the deal. Did the big shots and aristocrats cash in all the chips? Or did the everyday people see some of the action? Acemoğlu's takes us on a ride through history's tech rollercoaster.
Acemoğlu's writing style, for starters, is captivating. There's this refreshing balance between depth and approachability. Some authors delve so deep into academic jargon that you feel like you need a PhD to understand them. Not here. Daron manages to serve up a scholarly feast that's easy on the palate, ensuring you grasp the key points without feeling overwhelmed.
One of my favorite sections dives into the Industrial Revolution. We've all learned about it in school, but Acemoğlu provides fresh insights, explaining not just the “what” but the “why.” Why did some societies flourish during this period while others seemed to stagnate? His answers, deeply rooted in the interplay of power dynamics, technological change, and institutional structures, give a fresh perspective on this critical epoch.
Another highlight is his analysis of modern technological advancements, especially when it comes to AI and automation. We're living in an era where the pace of technological progress is, frankly, mind-boggling. Acemoğlu raises smart questions about how these shifts will influence labor markets, income distribution, and social structures. He doesn't pretend to have all the answers, but his explorations are thought-provoking and timely.
Now, don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a light read you’d pick up for a beach day. But if you're up for something a bit more cerebral, something that challenges you to think about the world around you and the future that awaits, “Power and Progress” is a worthy choice.
There are just so many insights in this book that are brand new. It offers a rich, insightful look into the complicated relationship between technology, societal structures, and prosperity. It's a blend of history, economics, and foresight, all wrapped up in an engaging narrative. Whether you're a student, an academic, or just a curious soul looking for a meaningful read, this one's really compelling. I learned a lot.
Acemoğlu's writing style, for starters, is captivating. There's this refreshing balance between depth and approachability. Some authors delve so deep into academic jargon that you feel like you need a PhD to understand them. Not here. Daron manages to serve up a scholarly feast that's easy on the palate, ensuring you grasp the key points without feeling overwhelmed.
One of my favorite sections dives into the Industrial Revolution. We've all learned about it in school, but Acemoğlu provides fresh insights, explaining not just the “what” but the “why.” Why did some societies flourish during this period while others seemed to stagnate? His answers, deeply rooted in the interplay of power dynamics, technological change, and institutional structures, give a fresh perspective on this critical epoch.
Another highlight is his analysis of modern technological advancements, especially when it comes to AI and automation. We're living in an era where the pace of technological progress is, frankly, mind-boggling. Acemoğlu raises smart questions about how these shifts will influence labor markets, income distribution, and social structures. He doesn't pretend to have all the answers, but his explorations are thought-provoking and timely.
Now, don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a light read you’d pick up for a beach day. But if you're up for something a bit more cerebral, something that challenges you to think about the world around you and the future that awaits, “Power and Progress” is a worthy choice.
There are just so many insights in this book that are brand new. It offers a rich, insightful look into the complicated relationship between technology, societal structures, and prosperity. It's a blend of history, economics, and foresight, all wrapped up in an engaging narrative. Whether you're a student, an academic, or just a curious soul looking for a meaningful read, this one's really compelling. I learned a lot.
October 1, 2023
Two American economists reinterpret a thousand years of history and technological progress. The evidence shows that technology (as with most other things) has all too often benefited the elites and made others worse off. Progress is not automatic, and it is dependent on choices made as a society. Using the lessons from the past, society must reshape the path of innovation to create shared prosperity for all.
It feels impossible to escape the current hype about artificial intelligence. And while I am no expert on AI technology, I do have a strong curiosity about the uses for AI and find myself wondering often what it will look like in the future…hence my interest in this book. The authors' reinterpretation of the last 1,000 years of human development supports the somewhat unsettling conclusion that technology does not always equal progress. The book pulls examples from the agricultural technologies of the neolithic and medieval ages, the building of the Panama Canal, the rise of middle class entrepreneurs during the Industrial Revolution, and how banks got to be thought of as too big to fail during the financial crisis. A lot of these examples offered a new layer of understanding to what I already knew about these time periods or events. I also found the authors' analysis of automation to be particularly compelling with the exploration of so-so automation ("all the displacement and little of the promised productivity gains"). Finally, I walked away with a lot to consider about future AI developments based on the authors' roadmap of how the benefits of the next technological wave can be shared with everyone.
The two authors are economics professors, so you can expect that the writing is heavy on the research and light on the narrative storytelling. The book is still very readable, but it is definitely not concise. The authors reinforce their points over and over, so the content starts to feel quite repetitive a few chapters in. I found the ideas and messages of the book to be really interesting, but I wish there had been a little more editing. I think the book could have been about 200 pages shorter just by removing all of the repetition without sacrificing any of the critical messaging and ideas.
I gained some new perspectives on technological progress, and I learned quite a bit from the historical case studies included in the book. However, due to the unnecessary length, this probably isn't one I would actively recommend to others, but it's still an interesting read for anyone with a strong interest in technology, AI, and/or automation.
It feels impossible to escape the current hype about artificial intelligence. And while I am no expert on AI technology, I do have a strong curiosity about the uses for AI and find myself wondering often what it will look like in the future…hence my interest in this book. The authors' reinterpretation of the last 1,000 years of human development supports the somewhat unsettling conclusion that technology does not always equal progress. The book pulls examples from the agricultural technologies of the neolithic and medieval ages, the building of the Panama Canal, the rise of middle class entrepreneurs during the Industrial Revolution, and how banks got to be thought of as too big to fail during the financial crisis. A lot of these examples offered a new layer of understanding to what I already knew about these time periods or events. I also found the authors' analysis of automation to be particularly compelling with the exploration of so-so automation ("all the displacement and little of the promised productivity gains"). Finally, I walked away with a lot to consider about future AI developments based on the authors' roadmap of how the benefits of the next technological wave can be shared with everyone.
The two authors are economics professors, so you can expect that the writing is heavy on the research and light on the narrative storytelling. The book is still very readable, but it is definitely not concise. The authors reinforce their points over and over, so the content starts to feel quite repetitive a few chapters in. I found the ideas and messages of the book to be really interesting, but I wish there had been a little more editing. I think the book could have been about 200 pages shorter just by removing all of the repetition without sacrificing any of the critical messaging and ideas.
I gained some new perspectives on technological progress, and I learned quite a bit from the historical case studies included in the book. However, due to the unnecessary length, this probably isn't one I would actively recommend to others, but it's still an interesting read for anyone with a strong interest in technology, AI, and/or automation.
May 25, 2023
I had high hopes for this book, given the intelligence and expertise of the authors, but was sorely disappointed.
I was hoping for a model of how to think about the distribution of productivity gains from technological change. Instead, there's a parade of extreme of anecdotes of productivity gains not being widely shared through society. The case of communist China and the Soviet Union should be directly applicable to the situation our economy might face, right? Well, no.
There is much discussion about the history of economic growth. The book does not go into detail but blithely dismisses the explanations that (I think) are widely accepted in the academic profession without much support. Probably the authors should go read _How the World Became Rich_, a book with well-argued and well-referenced modern research. The authors need not agree but without better support of their positions (without SOME support of their positions) there's really no justification for accepting their positions.
The authors repeatedly make the same advice: think about the people when taking actions that affect technological progress. Just that, nothing more specific. Why might people/companies NOT already have those thoughts? If there are such reasons, why do they make the choices that they do and what would be required to change those choices? The book is mostly silent on this and thus no particular help: if you're someone who's already thought a tiny bit about the issues faced you won't find anything here to help you think about the potential problems any more clearly.
The book does point to how the German economy has handled such problems, the authors should go back and read their colleague Autor's book _The Work of the Future_ to understand the complications and limitations of introducing such a system to the US. In fact, if you're reading this review, you should probably Autor's book over this one: it doesn't promise to cover the ground of _Power and Progress_ but at least it covers its related material well and, even though imperfect, it may increase your understanding of the coming changes and how to think about them.
I was hoping for a model of how to think about the distribution of productivity gains from technological change. Instead, there's a parade of extreme of anecdotes of productivity gains not being widely shared through society. The case of communist China and the Soviet Union should be directly applicable to the situation our economy might face, right? Well, no.
There is much discussion about the history of economic growth. The book does not go into detail but blithely dismisses the explanations that (I think) are widely accepted in the academic profession without much support. Probably the authors should go read _How the World Became Rich_, a book with well-argued and well-referenced modern research. The authors need not agree but without better support of their positions (without SOME support of their positions) there's really no justification for accepting their positions.
The authors repeatedly make the same advice: think about the people when taking actions that affect technological progress. Just that, nothing more specific. Why might people/companies NOT already have those thoughts? If there are such reasons, why do they make the choices that they do and what would be required to change those choices? The book is mostly silent on this and thus no particular help: if you're someone who's already thought a tiny bit about the issues faced you won't find anything here to help you think about the potential problems any more clearly.
The book does point to how the German economy has handled such problems, the authors should go back and read their colleague Autor's book _The Work of the Future_ to understand the complications and limitations of introducing such a system to the US. In fact, if you're reading this review, you should probably Autor's book over this one: it doesn't promise to cover the ground of _Power and Progress_ but at least it covers its related material well and, even though imperfect, it may increase your understanding of the coming changes and how to think about them.
May 22, 2023
2.5, thesis point interesting and uses some cool case studies but over-all not my cup of tea, primarily because I think it could have been much shorter
May 31, 2023
The basic thesis of this book is: throughout history, technological progress is made to benefit the elite. Left to itself, there is no trickle down effect and the masses end up worse off than before the new technology appeared. However there have been times when societal forces (what we would call Samaj in India) have managed to force benefits to become more widespread.
Today we’re at such a juncture with two technologies - Green Energy and Artificial Intelligence. The book argues that we seem to be taking a more elitist path with AI compared to Green Energy. We could still change direction in both. Which path will we take?
Great book, that could change your mental model. The only drawback is that it is excessively focused on the USA (and, to a lesser extent, the UK) and makes only token references to the rest of the world. Still, the thesis is interesting and hence worth reading.
Today we’re at such a juncture with two technologies - Green Energy and Artificial Intelligence. The book argues that we seem to be taking a more elitist path with AI compared to Green Energy. We could still change direction in both. Which path will we take?
Great book, that could change your mental model. The only drawback is that it is excessively focused on the USA (and, to a lesser extent, the UK) and makes only token references to the rest of the world. Still, the thesis is interesting and hence worth reading.
August 12, 2023
Part of the 2 star rating is that I think it could have been a lot better, so while I'm really on the fence between 2 and 3, I'm rounding down as a "missed opportunity" penalty. I wouldn't have bothered to write such a long review if I didn't have a lot of respect for Acemoglu and think a lot of what they're arguing about is important
TLDR I wouldn't reccomend this book to anyone. You'd only be persuaded of the thesis if you already agreed.
Basically the book has a plausible thesis; technology doesn't necessarily benefit humanity. There are obvious contexts in which this is true (e.g. inside authoritarian regimes). There are also more controvercial cases where it's very complicated (e.g. automation, social media).
There are at least four serious problems with how the authors argue in this book. In all cases I'm not even saying they are wrong, just that they aren't persuasive.
First, they don't actually state who or what matters. This is really important, say in the case of labour unions, since (if all goes well) labour unions being powerful likely helps wages for [employed, unionised] workers, at the expense of something. That something might be less business profits for the rich (presumably what society wants), or it might be
- Higher prices for consumers
- Less total jobs
- Less prefits for shareholders (some of whom are rich others might be pension funds)
- If union power leads to say less offshoring it might mean jobs go to Americans that would have gone to people in the developing world.
(Probably all of these things happen to varying extents). The implicit assumption of the authors based on what they paint as 'good' and 'bad' outcomes is that American workers are all that matter. I don't think the authors actually believe thisl; my point is just that whether say labor unions slowing automation is good depends on heaps of complicated dynamics, and how we allocate moral value, and the authors at least for the sake of the book seem uninterested in delving down into the complicated dynamics. For someone like me who's philosophical intuition is that "all people matter basically equally" reading chapters like this offers almost nothing.
Secondly, the authors seem to ignore other plausible approaches to fix the (sometimes very real) problems they point out. For example, if automation hurts jobs we have at least two possible approaches. One is we can encourage/force companies to use labor they don't need. Another is we could have a robust social safetly net such that people out of jobs are supported (e.g. UBI, negative income tax, job training programs). There are some reasons to favour the former; less distruption, jobs are good for mental health etc. There might also be good reasons to consider that latter:
- If we're wrong and the labour market will adapt, then we aren't locking ourselves in an inefficient way of doing things. Few poeple lament that there aren't many weavers, or that relatively few of us need to be farmers, even though when these sectors were distrupted we worries about the same things we are now.
- The overall efficiency is likely to be higher without distorting incentives, so there is in theory more actual stuff to redistribute.
- A policy of redistribution is less complicated than trying to regulate automation, so it's less likely policy will make a mistake and cause harm
For the most part the authors don't even entertain these kinds of market based or welfaree based alternatives, so if they have good reason to prefer direct regulation on automation they don't tell me what it is. In the very final chapter they very superficially touch on some of these alternatives, but unhelpfully. E.g. they they dismiss UBI in about two sentences on the gounds that it's not targeted and might lead to less people working. Now I'm not some pro UBI zeolot but I can see that this is a bad argument. UBI advocates would respond that a UBI can 'become' functionally targeted because you increase marginal tax rates, and you can get around incentives by combining it with e.g. a negative income tax, or having the level be quire low (enough to live on but not very comfortably). My point isn't that a UBI is good and the authors are wrong, it's that the authors aren't interested in exploring plausible alternatives in good faith and don't explain why.
Thirdly, the authors have a common habit of pointing out problems and not positing clear alternatives or counterfactuals. For example in probably the worst chapter of the book they posit that current software development is (not necessarily on nett) harmful and antithetical to the original hacker ethos. This is because (they argue) big companies try to control software, and design software so that experts can use it and automate things. Aside from being completely contrary to my own experience as a software person (open source culturs is alive and well, hackers by and large I would say less interested than normal in like making stuff that can be used by non-technical people) it doesn't explain what actual "hacker approved" measures could have made things different. It seems to me that as companies like microsoft and apple create their own ecosystems and walled gardens hackers said "ok fine I'll do my own thing". Would hackers (or anyone) prefer it if... instead the government came along and said "no Microsoft you have to make software for noobs"? Surely not, so what are the authors even advocating? They don't say.
Finally, there's a lot of what feel like morte and bailey arguments. One of the problems the authors face is that some claims about technology are kind of obvious and not that interesting (e.g. tech + authoritarianism = bad), and the latter claims are really unclear and depend a lot on your values and/or how the future turns out (e.g. social media is bad). The authors seem to try to have their cake and eat it too by muddling things up, so that some type of technology is BAD FOR US in an INTERESTING/UNEXPECTED way, but where this is only true given their muddling. As an example, take the chapter on the Panama Canal. The point of the chapter is to demonstrate that big technological grand visions can be bad. But the failure of the Panama Canal is one of a grand vision coupled with abuses of state power (e.g. forced labor) and what would be at least today literal crimes (invester fraud). If you imagine a market context, something like what exists in Western Democracies, then it's not really clear grand visions are bad. Sure they will sometimes/often fail, but then they go out of business, investors lose money, people learn and we all move on.
TLDR I wouldn't reccomend this book to anyone. You'd only be persuaded of the thesis if you already agreed.
Basically the book has a plausible thesis; technology doesn't necessarily benefit humanity. There are obvious contexts in which this is true (e.g. inside authoritarian regimes). There are also more controvercial cases where it's very complicated (e.g. automation, social media).
There are at least four serious problems with how the authors argue in this book. In all cases I'm not even saying they are wrong, just that they aren't persuasive.
First, they don't actually state who or what matters. This is really important, say in the case of labour unions, since (if all goes well) labour unions being powerful likely helps wages for [employed, unionised] workers, at the expense of something. That something might be less business profits for the rich (presumably what society wants), or it might be
- Higher prices for consumers
- Less total jobs
- Less prefits for shareholders (some of whom are rich others might be pension funds)
- If union power leads to say less offshoring it might mean jobs go to Americans that would have gone to people in the developing world.
(Probably all of these things happen to varying extents). The implicit assumption of the authors based on what they paint as 'good' and 'bad' outcomes is that American workers are all that matter. I don't think the authors actually believe thisl; my point is just that whether say labor unions slowing automation is good depends on heaps of complicated dynamics, and how we allocate moral value, and the authors at least for the sake of the book seem uninterested in delving down into the complicated dynamics. For someone like me who's philosophical intuition is that "all people matter basically equally" reading chapters like this offers almost nothing.
Secondly, the authors seem to ignore other plausible approaches to fix the (sometimes very real) problems they point out. For example, if automation hurts jobs we have at least two possible approaches. One is we can encourage/force companies to use labor they don't need. Another is we could have a robust social safetly net such that people out of jobs are supported (e.g. UBI, negative income tax, job training programs). There are some reasons to favour the former; less distruption, jobs are good for mental health etc. There might also be good reasons to consider that latter:
- If we're wrong and the labour market will adapt, then we aren't locking ourselves in an inefficient way of doing things. Few poeple lament that there aren't many weavers, or that relatively few of us need to be farmers, even though when these sectors were distrupted we worries about the same things we are now.
- The overall efficiency is likely to be higher without distorting incentives, so there is in theory more actual stuff to redistribute.
- A policy of redistribution is less complicated than trying to regulate automation, so it's less likely policy will make a mistake and cause harm
For the most part the authors don't even entertain these kinds of market based or welfaree based alternatives, so if they have good reason to prefer direct regulation on automation they don't tell me what it is. In the very final chapter they very superficially touch on some of these alternatives, but unhelpfully. E.g. they they dismiss UBI in about two sentences on the gounds that it's not targeted and might lead to less people working. Now I'm not some pro UBI zeolot but I can see that this is a bad argument. UBI advocates would respond that a UBI can 'become' functionally targeted because you increase marginal tax rates, and you can get around incentives by combining it with e.g. a negative income tax, or having the level be quire low (enough to live on but not very comfortably). My point isn't that a UBI is good and the authors are wrong, it's that the authors aren't interested in exploring plausible alternatives in good faith and don't explain why.
Thirdly, the authors have a common habit of pointing out problems and not positing clear alternatives or counterfactuals. For example in probably the worst chapter of the book they posit that current software development is (not necessarily on nett) harmful and antithetical to the original hacker ethos. This is because (they argue) big companies try to control software, and design software so that experts can use it and automate things. Aside from being completely contrary to my own experience as a software person (open source culturs is alive and well, hackers by and large I would say less interested than normal in like making stuff that can be used by non-technical people) it doesn't explain what actual "hacker approved" measures could have made things different. It seems to me that as companies like microsoft and apple create their own ecosystems and walled gardens hackers said "ok fine I'll do my own thing". Would hackers (or anyone) prefer it if... instead the government came along and said "no Microsoft you have to make software for noobs"? Surely not, so what are the authors even advocating? They don't say.
Finally, there's a lot of what feel like morte and bailey arguments. One of the problems the authors face is that some claims about technology are kind of obvious and not that interesting (e.g. tech + authoritarianism = bad), and the latter claims are really unclear and depend a lot on your values and/or how the future turns out (e.g. social media is bad). The authors seem to try to have their cake and eat it too by muddling things up, so that some type of technology is BAD FOR US in an INTERESTING/UNEXPECTED way, but where this is only true given their muddling. As an example, take the chapter on the Panama Canal. The point of the chapter is to demonstrate that big technological grand visions can be bad. But the failure of the Panama Canal is one of a grand vision coupled with abuses of state power (e.g. forced labor) and what would be at least today literal crimes (invester fraud). If you imagine a market context, something like what exists in Western Democracies, then it's not really clear grand visions are bad. Sure they will sometimes/often fail, but then they go out of business, investors lose money, people learn and we all move on.
May 31, 2023
In “Power and Progress,” Acemoglu and Johnson convincingly make the case that technological progress has never been automatically associated with societal benefits (e.g., agricultural improvements in the Middle Ages were captured by nobles to build cathedrals, early factories in England made factory owners rich while workers became poorer and less healthy). Instead, whether new technologies benefit society at large depends on institutions and how power is shared in society.
Take Germany’s approach to automation in the car industry, for example. Unlike the US, Germany uses sectoral collective bargaining to set wages, which incentivizes companies to find ways to raise productivity compared to their peers and still pay workers the same amount as their peers, meaning that productivity increases translate to profit gains. Germany has actually embraced automation more than the US, but thanks to its sectoral unions, it has made efforts to retrain workers and reallocate them to new tasks, finding ways for technology to complement, not replace, workers. Technology-as-human-replacement can be inefficient and fails to take advantage of human workers’ flexibility and adaptability. As Elon Musk put it after unsuccessfully trying to fully automate the production of Teslas: “Humans are underrated.”
And yet, many companies are embracing automation regardless of the costs, widening inequality, worsening or hardly improving consumer experiences (e.g., automated help lines), surveilling workers, and hollowing out the skilled workforce.
Acemoglu and Johnson call for policy change to incentivize human-complementing technology developments and stop subsidizing AI, not halt technological progress altogether. Some ideas struck me as particularly effective (e.g., decreasing payroll taxes below taxes on capital to stop incentivizing automation, subsidizing technologies that increase the labor share of income, regulating digital privacy, investing in retraining programs).
The challenge will be how to continue to incentivize the very real societal benefits technological progress enables (e.g., better and more rapidly developed life-saving vaccines and drugs) with ensuring new technologies produce shared prosperity and do not worsen societal challenges (e.g., anti democratic forces, mass unemployment, growing inequality). Burdensome regulation and industrial policy are likely to be less effective than adjusting incentives away from automation toward productivity-increasing technologies (e.g., by taxing capital more heavily than labor, investing in research).
Regardless of whether you agree with Acemoglu and Johnson’s conclusions and recommendations, “Power and Progress” will challenge you and possibly inspire some optimism that we can still shape the effects of AI and other new technologies on our societies.
Take Germany’s approach to automation in the car industry, for example. Unlike the US, Germany uses sectoral collective bargaining to set wages, which incentivizes companies to find ways to raise productivity compared to their peers and still pay workers the same amount as their peers, meaning that productivity increases translate to profit gains. Germany has actually embraced automation more than the US, but thanks to its sectoral unions, it has made efforts to retrain workers and reallocate them to new tasks, finding ways for technology to complement, not replace, workers. Technology-as-human-replacement can be inefficient and fails to take advantage of human workers’ flexibility and adaptability. As Elon Musk put it after unsuccessfully trying to fully automate the production of Teslas: “Humans are underrated.”
And yet, many companies are embracing automation regardless of the costs, widening inequality, worsening or hardly improving consumer experiences (e.g., automated help lines), surveilling workers, and hollowing out the skilled workforce.
Acemoglu and Johnson call for policy change to incentivize human-complementing technology developments and stop subsidizing AI, not halt technological progress altogether. Some ideas struck me as particularly effective (e.g., decreasing payroll taxes below taxes on capital to stop incentivizing automation, subsidizing technologies that increase the labor share of income, regulating digital privacy, investing in retraining programs).
The challenge will be how to continue to incentivize the very real societal benefits technological progress enables (e.g., better and more rapidly developed life-saving vaccines and drugs) with ensuring new technologies produce shared prosperity and do not worsen societal challenges (e.g., anti democratic forces, mass unemployment, growing inequality). Burdensome regulation and industrial policy are likely to be less effective than adjusting incentives away from automation toward productivity-increasing technologies (e.g., by taxing capital more heavily than labor, investing in research).
Regardless of whether you agree with Acemoglu and Johnson’s conclusions and recommendations, “Power and Progress” will challenge you and possibly inspire some optimism that we can still shape the effects of AI and other new technologies on our societies.
June 19, 2023
This was...surprising. Authors describe the problems of concentration and technology pointing out well the risks and problems. What is less convincing are the proposed solutions, what is a bit tiring is the too long historical intro.
Also, small thjngs here and there - the echo chambers are ať least according to Bail not so much of a problem and I would expect the authors to confront this somehow.
Also, small thjngs here and there - the echo chambers are ať least according to Bail not so much of a problem and I would expect the authors to confront this somehow.
October 1, 2023
Made some interesting points but essentially a long procession of anecdotal evidence. Could have been a quarter of its length.
August 15, 2023
Didn’t disappoint, every bit as good as I expected. Going into collection
June 14, 2023
Another thoughtful and well written book by Daron Acemoglu, this time co-authored with Simon Johnson. Power and Progress challenges the idea that the pace of technological change is inevitable and that it will lead to greater automation and job losses. Tracing the concepts from medieval times through the Industrial Revolution it shows how ‘countervailing forces’ such as protective legislation, organised labour and government intervention have balanced technological progress with societal well being. Bringing the notion up to date with the experience of big tech and the prospect of Generative AI, it argues for urgent measures to tackle this new threat to democracy, employment and humanity.
July 23, 2023
The authors’ arguments work when they discuss need for improved regulation and policy so that economies work smoother and prevent excess rent taking. But since they want their book to be about how technology is bad, they don’t focus there. In their own book there is plenty of evidence that humanity’s technology improvements - from axes and fire until today - is the reason we have the potential for longer and richer lives.
May 25, 2023
Progress is never automatic. Throughout the book, from the prologue to the concluding chapter, Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson reiterate this central message. Our intuition thinking otherwise reflects a misguided vision–a utopia promised and powered by new technologies.
This is not a technosceptic’s testimony. Unlike some proponents of AI regulations, such as Max Tegmark and Sam Altman, the economists are concerned with the labour setting disrupted by an unsupervised trend of innovation.
The authors cite the malnourishment of the mediaeval English farmers, defying our expectation on their long list of innovations. Similarly, they explore how the Industrial Revolution was initially a continuation of deplorable labour arrangement. The ‘technology bandwagon’ only rings true up to the first word, because no one beside some entitled cliques can jump on it.
This illusion is just as prevalent today as ever. It is unlikely that artificial intelligence is taking away troubles, but first and foremost, jobs. In other words, ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ is just as plausible as the ones in ‘I, Robot’ and ‘Brave New World’, the former and the residents thereof aptly foreshadowing a bleak future.
Think of ‘so-so automations’, such as digital check-ins. You’ll run into your boss on a Friday evening just before you go, not coincidentally because the app has tracked and predicted your business hour patterns. The power of the powerless is being chipped away.
As you progress through chapters four to eight, the authors gradually convince the reader that misdirected advancement is fundamentally dystopian. However, while their analysis has posed a veritable challenge to the prevailing vision, they did not chart a course against it in the coming chapters.
They propose the use of automation to assist manpower, but whether such a coalescence wastes human resources would have rightly bugged the late David Graebar. In that case, policymakers may turn to digital and automation taxes and dismantle tech giants. All this brashness underscores a key message: any interventions serve not to hamper the economy, better still, they steer it away from unintended consequences.
In spite of that, these solutions are not a proper response to their keen emphasis on ‘visions’ early on. While both policies and visions can undo or avert the wrongdoings, the bottom-up vision clearly has far-reaching impacts and is harder to spur into existence without guidance.
What they prize as the ultra determinant in Industrial Britain is an aspirant middle class following the Glorious Revolution. So within the bounds of the law, how to spark off a society-wide discourse above the pecking order remains unanswered. They briefly mentioned investigative journalism, a public sphere and some crowdfunded unions, all feasible until you meet the countries where the right to assemble is abridged, all bets are off.
Institutions that promote diverse opinions are well within the research field of the veteran economists. If not a roadmap, maybe a list of actionable steps for individuals would suffice? Robert J. Shiller developed a similar thesis in his 2019 book ‘Narrative Economics’, but apparently, his ‘narrative’ didn’t take off. It is hoped that this visionary book will not suffer the same irony.
Overall, they have studied widely and dispelled the digital utopian vision that riddles contemporary discourse. Even though the proposed solutions may not be a full answer to the challenge, the book nonetheless puts some policies in perspective as an attempt.
This is not a technosceptic’s testimony. Unlike some proponents of AI regulations, such as Max Tegmark and Sam Altman, the economists are concerned with the labour setting disrupted by an unsupervised trend of innovation.
The authors cite the malnourishment of the mediaeval English farmers, defying our expectation on their long list of innovations. Similarly, they explore how the Industrial Revolution was initially a continuation of deplorable labour arrangement. The ‘technology bandwagon’ only rings true up to the first word, because no one beside some entitled cliques can jump on it.
This illusion is just as prevalent today as ever. It is unlikely that artificial intelligence is taking away troubles, but first and foremost, jobs. In other words, ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ is just as plausible as the ones in ‘I, Robot’ and ‘Brave New World’, the former and the residents thereof aptly foreshadowing a bleak future.
Think of ‘so-so automations’, such as digital check-ins. You’ll run into your boss on a Friday evening just before you go, not coincidentally because the app has tracked and predicted your business hour patterns. The power of the powerless is being chipped away.
As you progress through chapters four to eight, the authors gradually convince the reader that misdirected advancement is fundamentally dystopian. However, while their analysis has posed a veritable challenge to the prevailing vision, they did not chart a course against it in the coming chapters.
They propose the use of automation to assist manpower, but whether such a coalescence wastes human resources would have rightly bugged the late David Graebar. In that case, policymakers may turn to digital and automation taxes and dismantle tech giants. All this brashness underscores a key message: any interventions serve not to hamper the economy, better still, they steer it away from unintended consequences.
In spite of that, these solutions are not a proper response to their keen emphasis on ‘visions’ early on. While both policies and visions can undo or avert the wrongdoings, the bottom-up vision clearly has far-reaching impacts and is harder to spur into existence without guidance.
What they prize as the ultra determinant in Industrial Britain is an aspirant middle class following the Glorious Revolution. So within the bounds of the law, how to spark off a society-wide discourse above the pecking order remains unanswered. They briefly mentioned investigative journalism, a public sphere and some crowdfunded unions, all feasible until you meet the countries where the right to assemble is abridged, all bets are off.
Institutions that promote diverse opinions are well within the research field of the veteran economists. If not a roadmap, maybe a list of actionable steps for individuals would suffice? Robert J. Shiller developed a similar thesis in his 2019 book ‘Narrative Economics’, but apparently, his ‘narrative’ didn’t take off. It is hoped that this visionary book will not suffer the same irony.
Overall, they have studied widely and dispelled the digital utopian vision that riddles contemporary discourse. Even though the proposed solutions may not be a full answer to the challenge, the book nonetheless puts some policies in perspective as an attempt.
April 22, 2024
DNF at 35%. There was absolutely no need for this book to be so long. Read another review that said it reads like 'economists discover social power' and literally, that. Chapter 1 summarises a really basic thesis and the rest of the book is just repeating the same point with different historical examples.
July 18, 2023
A good summary from history into shedding light into today and the future.
January 9, 2024
Estos libros me recuerdan las razones por las que elegí ser economista. Aprendí mucho.
August 29, 2023
Traveling now. Review to follow 😎
August 25, 2023
Main idea and argument is good, but unless you’re interested in looking at familiar historical events through a slightly different lens it’s prob only worth reading the first and last chapters
August 28, 2023
Una completa decepción.
Me ha decepcionado el libro. Esperaba un libro con información útil abarca de cómo usar la tecnología para el bien. Resultó un libro de muy poca utilidad. Me pareció pura propaganda ideológica.
Me ha decepcionado el libro. Esperaba un libro con información útil abarca de cómo usar la tecnología para el bien. Resultó un libro de muy poca utilidad. Me pareció pura propaganda ideológica.
August 8, 2023
Great book at a great time, putting the current AI revolution in perspective and reminding us that (a) innovation historically hasn’t always benefited society at large and (b) technological optimism can lead to delusions that cost lives. It seems there are more reasons to believe that AI will not bring us broad based prosperity but will instead make a few people very rich. Recommended reading, if only for the thorough dissection of the Industrial Revolution (finally authors that state: “This was the main reason for the Industrial Revolution”, without beating around the bush).
July 11, 2023
Disclaimer: this review is written by a fellow economist, who is a micro theorist.
- Generic model, common sense policy. Easily it could have been around 300 pages but long is the authors’ style.
- Great anecdotal and historical data, as always. First 1/3 is great, last 1/3 is great. The middle 1/3 is redundant but again that is their style.
- I’d highly recommend Why Nations Fail instead. Feel free to skip this one.
- Generic model, common sense policy. Easily it could have been around 300 pages but long is the authors’ style.
- Great anecdotal and historical data, as always. First 1/3 is great, last 1/3 is great. The middle 1/3 is redundant but again that is their style.
- I’d highly recommend Why Nations Fail instead. Feel free to skip this one.
April 26, 2024
مسئلهِ مسیر بهرهوری
یادداشتی به مناسبت خوانش آخرین اثر دارون عجم اغلو:
Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity
کتاب قدرت و پیشرفت اثر مفصل عجم اغلو و سایمون جانسون، شاید یکی از مهمترین کُتبهای اقتصادِ عمومی دهه اخیر باشد. کتابی حاصلِ دغدغههای اخیر عجم اغلو یعنی، تکنولوژی و خصوصا هوش مصنوعی که به پشتوانه منابع مفصلش برای افراد علاقهمند به تکنولوژی بسیار اهمیت دارد. در اینفوگرافیک بالا، مهمترین نکات کتاب قدرت و پیشرفت را خلاصه کردم. و در ادامه مهمترین نکات کتاب را به زبان ساده آوردهام، هرچند باید کتاب به دقت خوانده شود تا این نکات به ذهن و جان خوانندگان بنشیند.
نسخه بهتر اینفوگرافیک را اینجاببینید:
ممسئله اصلی کتاب
شاید بتوان مسئله اصلی کتاب را این پرسش مطرح کرد: آیا عواید فناوری به شکل مساوی به آحاد جامعه میرسد؟ کتاب سعی میکند با ادله فراوان به یک پاسخ روشن برای این سوال برسد. پاسخ کتاب این است: نه لزوما و شوربختانه در بیشتر تاریخ بشر عواید نشئت گرفته از فناوری تنها به گروه محدودی از جامعه رسیده است. کتاب به خوشبینی غولهای فناوری و مدیران و سهامداران شرکتهای دیجیتال مانند ماکروسافت، گوگل و متا (فیسبوک) میپردازد که معتقد اند مسیر فناوری امروز که در راستای توسعه هوشمصنوعی است، باعث میشود تا جامعه بهرهمندتر گردند. کتاب این فرضیه و خوشبینی را زیر سوال میبرد و نویسندگان کتاب معتقد اند که مسیرفعلی نوآوریهای دیجیتال باعث بیشترشدن شکاف طبقاتی در جامعه میشود و باید مسیر توسعه فناوری تغییر کند.
ارابه ناقص بهرهوری
یکی از کلیدیترین موضوعات کتاب زیر سوال بردن تئوری یا اثر Bandwagon productivity effect یا اثر ارابه بهرهوری است. بر اساس این تئوری با افزایش بهرهوری (که عمدتا به خاطر اتوماسیون صورت میپذیرد)، هزینهها کاهش مییابد، درآمد افراد افزایش مییابد و بر اساس آن عواید حاصل از بهرهوری به آحاد جامعه میرسد. عجم اغلو و سایمون جانسون نشان میدهند که به طور تاریخی این موضوع نمیتواند اثبات شود. و فناوریهایی که موجب بهرهوری میشوند خود به خود باعث این نخواهند شد که عواید حاصل از بهرهوری و کاهش هزینهها به آحاد جامعه برسد. اتفاقا، اتوماسیون حاصل از بهروری میتواند باعث دو قطبی شدن جامعه به لحاظ رفاه و بهرهمندی شود.
چشمانداز فناوری
کتاب بدون این که به شکل مستقیم به این پرسش مهم فلسفی پاسخ دهد که آیا فناوری Value-free است، در فصل دوم به طور کامل به این پرسش میپردازد. کتاب با مقایسه دو موردِ کانال سوئز و کانال پاناما نشان میدهد که چگونه یک فناوری بدون توجه به مسئله چشم انداز و اثرات جانبی آن میتواند باعث فاجعه شود. کتاب تاکید میکند که فناوری مسیر لاجرمی ندارد و توسط انسانها، هدایت میشود و این بدین معناست که انتخابهای ما انسانهاست که به فناوری جهت میدهد.
بهرهوری حاشیهای: توانمندسازی آحاد جامعه یا اتوماسیون نصف و نیمه (So-So Automation)
شاید یکی از مضامین اصلی کتاب پاسخ به این سوال باشد که در چه صورت ارابه بهرهوری رخ میدهد و آحادجامعه از فواید فناوری بهرهمند میشوند؟ پاسخ کتاب این است: زمانی که فناوری باعث شود تا به جای کنار گذاشتن آدمها، آنها توانمند شوند و برایشان فعالیتهای جدید و متنوع تعریف شود، آن وقت میتوان گفت که فناوری میتواند منجر به اثر ارابهای شود. کتاب در این جا به مفهوم مهمی به نام Marginal productivity اشاره میکند که به زبان ساده و ریاضی به این معنی است که اگر یک انسان به یک کسب و کار اضافه شود چقد به بهرهوری و خروجی آن کسب و کار اضافه میشود. کتاب به این حقیقت اشاره میکند که در صورتی که Marginal Productivity افراد یا بهرهوری حاشیهای کارکنانِ یک شرکت یا یک کارخانه افزایش پیدا کند، آن وقت کسب و کارها افراد بیشتری را استخدام میکنند و کسب و کارشان را گسترش میبخشند و مشاغل بیشتری ناشی از فناوری ایجاد میشود. اما در صورتی که فناوری باعث شود تا کارهای افراد دچار فرآیند اتوماسیون شود و فقط ماشینها جایگزین انسانها شوند و فعالیتهای جدید پدید نیایند، آن وقت بهرهوری حاشیهای افراد کاهش مییابد و افراد بیکار میشوند و عواید ناشی از بهرهوری فقط به صاحبان کسب و کارها و سهام دارها میشوند. این که به کارگیری فناوریها باعث شود تا توانمندسازی افراد و یا جایگزین شدنشان رخ دهد، تنها انتخاب ماست. کتاب همچنین به اثر اتوماسیون بر بهرهوری کلان سازمانها میپردازد. برای مثال، اگر به جای صندوقدار مغازهها از دستگاههای خودکار استفاده کنیم، تنها شغلها را از بین بردهایم و باعث بهرهوری کلان مغازهها نشدهایم، کتاب به این نوع اتوماسیون، اتوماسیون نصف و نیمه میگویند که تنها باعث بیکاری و پر پول شدن جیب مدیران و سهامداران شرکتها میشود.
یادگیری ماشینی یا کاربرد ماشینی
کتاب به سه دوره عصرکشاورزی و فناوریهای کشاورزی، عصر انقلاب صنعتی و عصر دیجیتال میپردازد. به طور خلاصه، کتاب نشان میدهد که در نیمه دوم عصر انقلاب صنعتی و نیمه نخست عصر دیجیتال به دلیل نهادهای مدنی، قدرتمند بودن نیروی کار و توضیح نسبتا متناسب قدرت میان کارگر و کارفرما مسیر فناوری به سمت توانمندسازی افراد و توزیع متوازن بهرهوری پیشرفته است. اتفاقی که در عصر دیجیتال امروز، رخ نمیدهد. در عصر دیجیتال امروز، ابزارهای دیجیتال به جای توانمندسازی کارکنان تبدیل به ابزارهایی برای کنترل آنها و کمتر کردن قدرتشان شده اند. همچنین فناوریهایی نظیر یادگیری ماشینی (هوش مصنوعی) باعث شده میشود تا افراد شغل خود را از دست بدهند بدون آن که بهرهوری به شکل کلان رخ دهد و این یعنی اتوماسیون نصف و نیمه. کتاب توصیه میکند تا به جای توجه به Machine Learning یا یادگیری ماشینی باید به Machine Usefulness یا کاربرد ماشینی توجه کرد. به این که چگونه باید فناوریهای گسترش یابند تا مکمل آدمی باشند به جای آن که باعث شوند افراد شغلشان را از دست دهند. همچنین کتاب میگوید فناوری یادگیری ماشینی یا هوش مصنوعی قادر نیست تا بسیاری از فعالیتهای مهم و تصمیمگیریهای اساسی را انجام دهند چرا که هوش آدمی یا مکانیزم تصمیمگیری آدمی بسیار مبتنی بر شرایط محیطی و شرایط اجتماعی است و دائما در حال تغییر است. بنابراین یادگیری ماشینی نمیتواند نویدبخش یک اتوماسیون گسترده با افزایش بهرهنوری خیرهکننده باشد و خوشبینی غولهای فناوری در این باره بسیار گمراه کننده است.
راه حل چیست؟
کتاب به مانند بسیاری از کُتُب مشابه دیگر، مثل کتابِ رقابت نوآوری دیجیتال که نگارنده ترجمه نموده، هدفش تشخیص و نه تجویز است. اما راهکارهای کتاب بعضا میتواند سرنخی باشد برای رسیدن به راهکارهای جامعتر. راهکارهایی مانند تقویت جامعهمدنی و توانمندسازی طبقه کارگر، مالیات بستن بر اتوماسیون، اعطای گرنت به پژوهشها و پروژههای تحقیقاتی در حوزه کاربردماشینی به جای یادگیری ماشینی، انحصارزدایی و شکستن شرکتهای بزرگ فناوری مانند گوگل، ماکروسافت و فیسبوک و توجه به مسئله آموزش از راهکارهای کتاب است. به طور کلی، کتاب با غنای عمیقی به مسئله فناوری و بهرهوری آن در طول تاریخ یک هزارساله اخیربشری میپردازد و درس آموزههای بسیاری برای آینده کوتاه مدت و میان مدت بشریت دارد.
یادداشتی به مناسبت خوانش آخرین اثر دارون عجم اغلو:
Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity
کتاب قدرت و پیشرفت اثر مفصل عجم اغلو و سایمون جانسون، شاید یکی از مهمترین کُتبهای اقتصادِ عمومی دهه اخیر باشد. کتابی حاصلِ دغدغههای اخیر عجم اغلو یعنی، تکنولوژی و خصوصا هوش مصنوعی که به پشتوانه منابع مفصلش برای افراد علاقهمند به تکنولوژی بسیار اهمیت دارد. در اینفوگرافیک بالا، مهمترین نکات کتاب قدرت و پیشرفت را خلاصه کردم. و در ادامه مهمترین نکات کتاب را به زبان ساده آوردهام، هرچند باید کتاب به دقت خوانده شود تا این نکات به ذهن و جان خوانندگان بنشیند.
نسخه بهتر اینفوگرافیک را اینجاببینید:
ممسئله اصلی کتاب
شاید بتوان مسئله اصلی کتاب را این پرسش مطرح کرد: آیا عواید فناوری به شکل مساوی به آحاد جامعه میرسد؟ کتاب سعی میکند با ادله فراوان به یک پاسخ روشن برای این سوال برسد. پاسخ کتاب این است: نه لزوما و شوربختانه در بیشتر تاریخ بشر عواید نشئت گرفته از فناوری تنها به گروه محدودی از جامعه رسیده است. کتاب به خوشبینی غولهای فناوری و مدیران و سهامداران شرکتهای دیجیتال مانند ماکروسافت، گوگل و متا (فیسبوک) میپردازد که معتقد اند مسیر فناوری امروز که در راستای توسعه هوشمصنوعی است، باعث میشود تا جامعه بهرهمندتر گردند. کتاب این فرضیه و خوشبینی را زیر سوال میبرد و نویسندگان کتاب معتقد اند که مسیرفعلی نوآوریهای دیجیتال باعث بیشترشدن شکاف طبقاتی در جامعه میشود و باید مسیر توسعه فناوری تغییر کند.
ارابه ناقص بهرهوری
یکی از کلیدیترین موضوعات کتاب زیر سوال بردن تئوری یا اثر Bandwagon productivity effect یا اثر ارابه بهرهوری است. بر اساس این تئوری با افزایش بهرهوری (که عمدتا به خاطر اتوماسیون صورت میپذیرد)، هزینهها کاهش مییابد، درآمد افراد افزایش مییابد و بر اساس آن عواید حاصل از بهرهوری به آحاد جامعه میرسد. عجم اغلو و سایمون جانسون نشان میدهند که به طور تاریخی این موضوع نمیتواند اثبات شود. و فناوریهایی که موجب بهرهوری میشوند خود به خود باعث این نخواهند شد که عواید حاصل از بهرهوری و کاهش هزینهها به آحاد جامعه برسد. اتفاقا، اتوماسیون حاصل از بهروری میتواند باعث دو قطبی شدن جامعه به لحاظ رفاه و بهرهمندی شود.
چشمانداز فناوری
کتاب بدون این که به شکل مستقیم به این پرسش مهم فلسفی پاسخ دهد که آیا فناوری Value-free است، در فصل دوم به طور کامل به این پرسش میپردازد. کتاب با مقایسه دو موردِ کانال سوئز و کانال پاناما نشان میدهد که چگونه یک فناوری بدون توجه به مسئله چشم انداز و اثرات جانبی آن میتواند باعث فاجعه شود. کتاب تاکید میکند که فناوری مسیر لاجرمی ندارد و توسط انسانها، هدایت میشود و این بدین معناست که انتخابهای ما انسانهاست که به فناوری جهت میدهد.
بهرهوری حاشیهای: توانمندسازی آحاد جامعه یا اتوماسیون نصف و نیمه (So-So Automation)
شاید یکی از مضامین اصلی کتاب پاسخ به این سوال باشد که در چه صورت ارابه بهرهوری رخ میدهد و آحادجامعه از فواید فناوری بهرهمند میشوند؟ پاسخ کتاب این است: زمانی که فناوری باعث شود تا به جای کنار گذاشتن آدمها، آنها توانمند شوند و برایشان فعالیتهای جدید و متنوع تعریف شود، آن وقت میتوان گفت که فناوری میتواند منجر به اثر ارابهای شود. کتاب در این جا به مفهوم مهمی به نام Marginal productivity اشاره میکند که به زبان ساده و ریاضی به این معنی است که اگر یک انسان به یک کسب و کار اضافه شود چقد به بهرهوری و خروجی آن کسب و کار اضافه میشود. کتاب به این حقیقت اشاره میکند که در صورتی که Marginal Productivity افراد یا بهرهوری حاشیهای کارکنانِ یک شرکت یا یک کارخانه افزایش پیدا کند، آن وقت کسب و کارها افراد بیشتری را استخدام میکنند و کسب و کارشان را گسترش میبخشند و مشاغل بیشتری ناشی از فناوری ایجاد میشود. اما در صورتی که فناوری باعث شود تا کارهای افراد دچار فرآیند اتوماسیون شود و فقط ماشینها جایگزین انسانها شوند و فعالیتهای جدید پدید نیایند، آن وقت بهرهوری حاشیهای افراد کاهش مییابد و افراد بیکار میشوند و عواید ناشی از بهرهوری فقط به صاحبان کسب و کارها و سهام دارها میشوند. این که به کارگیری فناوریها باعث شود تا توانمندسازی افراد و یا جایگزین شدنشان رخ دهد، تنها انتخاب ماست. کتاب همچنین به اثر اتوماسیون بر بهرهوری کلان سازمانها میپردازد. برای مثال، اگر به جای صندوقدار مغازهها از دستگاههای خودکار استفاده کنیم، تنها شغلها را از بین بردهایم و باعث بهرهوری کلان مغازهها نشدهایم، کتاب به این نوع اتوماسیون، اتوماسیون نصف و نیمه میگویند که تنها باعث بیکاری و پر پول شدن جیب مدیران و سهامداران شرکتها میشود.
یادگیری ماشینی یا کاربرد ماشینی
کتاب به سه دوره عصرکشاورزی و فناوریهای کشاورزی، عصر انقلاب صنعتی و عصر دیجیتال میپردازد. به طور خلاصه، کتاب نشان میدهد که در نیمه دوم عصر انقلاب صنعتی و نیمه نخست عصر دیجیتال به دلیل نهادهای مدنی، قدرتمند بودن نیروی کار و توضیح نسبتا متناسب قدرت میان کارگر و کارفرما مسیر فناوری به سمت توانمندسازی افراد و توزیع متوازن بهرهوری پیشرفته است. اتفاقی که در عصر دیجیتال امروز، رخ نمیدهد. در عصر دیجیتال امروز، ابزارهای دیجیتال به جای توانمندسازی کارکنان تبدیل به ابزارهایی برای کنترل آنها و کمتر کردن قدرتشان شده اند. همچنین فناوریهایی نظیر یادگیری ماشینی (هوش مصنوعی) باعث شده میشود تا افراد شغل خود را از دست بدهند بدون آن که بهرهوری به شکل کلان رخ دهد و این یعنی اتوماسیون نصف و نیمه. کتاب توصیه میکند تا به جای توجه به Machine Learning یا یادگیری ماشینی باید به Machine Usefulness یا کاربرد ماشینی توجه کرد. به این که چگونه باید فناوریهای گسترش یابند تا مکمل آدمی باشند به جای آن که باعث شوند افراد شغلشان را از دست دهند. همچنین کتاب میگوید فناوری یادگیری ماشینی یا هوش مصنوعی قادر نیست تا بسیاری از فعالیتهای مهم و تصمیمگیریهای اساسی را انجام دهند چرا که هوش آدمی یا مکانیزم تصمیمگیری آدمی بسیار مبتنی بر شرایط محیطی و شرایط اجتماعی است و دائما در حال تغییر است. بنابراین یادگیری ماشینی نمیتواند نویدبخش یک اتوماسیون گسترده با افزایش بهرهنوری خیرهکننده باشد و خوشبینی غولهای فناوری در این باره بسیار گمراه کننده است.
راه حل چیست؟
کتاب به مانند بسیاری از کُتُب مشابه دیگر، مثل کتابِ رقابت نوآوری دیجیتال که نگارنده ترجمه نموده، هدفش تشخیص و نه تجویز است. اما راهکارهای کتاب بعضا میتواند سرنخی باشد برای رسیدن به راهکارهای جامعتر. راهکارهایی مانند تقویت جامعهمدنی و توانمندسازی طبقه کارگر، مالیات بستن بر اتوماسیون، اعطای گرنت به پژوهشها و پروژههای تحقیقاتی در حوزه کاربردماشینی به جای یادگیری ماشینی، انحصارزدایی و شکستن شرکتهای بزرگ فناوری مانند گوگل، ماکروسافت و فیسبوک و توجه به مسئله آموزش از راهکارهای کتاب است. به طور کلی، کتاب با غنای عمیقی به مسئله فناوری و بهرهوری آن در طول تاریخ یک هزارساله اخیربشری میپردازد و درس آموزههای بسیاری برای آینده کوتاه مدت و میان مدت بشریت دارد.
June 24, 2023
I greatly anticipated this book after deeply respecting the authors' work in Why Nations Fail and The Narrow Corridor. However the examples or cases used to build the argument for better control and management of technology seemed weak or not broadly applicable to our current rapidly changing scenarios. Some of the claims (while backed up with well referenced material) tries to tease out where progress was managed equitably and where it was not. This is a tall order going counter to some of the my general understanding of history and could have been addressed better. For instance, German labor apprentice/journeyman/master experience is centuries old (Hanseatic League?) and could serve as a counterbalance to the labor mismanagement in Britain in late 19th century.
July 19, 2023
Eh. Came off a little like “economists discover social power.” Didn’t find the policy suggestions wrt AI particularly enlightening/specific. I think it is very difficult for govt to consciously shape the direction of technological development, and this book didn’t engage in enough depth to match the difficulty of the challenge it lays out.
July 20, 2023
These authors really phoned it in. I couldn’t believe the level of unoriginality here. Barely a mention of the benefits “the people” (their words) accrue from new technology. Your time is better spent elsewhere. Very disappointed.
September 2, 2023
Astounds me how they can take one good idea and stretch it out into a super long book (cf. atomic habits). This one has some interesting musings and enjoyable bits of history but it really should be half as long. 2.5 (average)
September 16, 2023
This is not the best work of either of the authors. It’s downright mediocre, but I’m sure it’s selling well because of who they are. There’s a lot regurgitation of commonly understood periods of economic history, which makes the book useful to people who are not well read I suppose.
July 18, 2023
Is Modern Technology a Digital Dystopia?
Are technology and the underlying science a force for good or evil?
Jonathan Swift, Mary Shelley, Nathaniel Hawthorne and many more authors have pondered this question and its ominous implications for civilization. Now this age-old question debate gets a fresh perspective in terms of its social-economic impacts and benefits.
Daron Acemoglu’s and Simon Johnson’s 2023 detailed and thoughtful treatise, “Power and Progress: Our 1000-Year Struggle Over Technology & Prosperity”, investigates humanity’s experience with disruptive technologies and who enjoys the benefits. Both are accomplished MIT professors: Acemoglu is Institute Professor Economics and Samuel Johnson, Professor of Entrepreneurship in the Sloan School.
The fundamental questions they raise:
• What represents power and progress for human social, political and economic processes and institutions when disruptive technologies arrive in the marketplace?
• Who gains immediately and at what cost to broader participation in the benefits?
• Are there steps that can encourage wider-reaching benefits for the common good?
Their work is presented in eleven chapters following a prologue asking “What is Progress?” The first seven chapters presents historical examples of disruptive technologies and their impacts at the time.
These keys points are: major technological inventions come along and are controlled by a few – the innovators and a tight cluster of those with the power to regulate the distribution of benefits. The trickle-down socio-economic impacts of these advances for the workers and general public are slow.
The three later chapters (8 - 10) focus on contemporary issues with today’s technology – the rise of digital information storage, analysis, distribution, tracking and exploitation for content control and advertising revenues – which readers may want to go straight to.
There is a notable shift in perspective: though perhaps better disguised, the exploitation is less about natural and more about human resources. In an ironic twist the new phase is with the enthusiastic consent of those being exploited. The end result is still immediate enrichment of a few at the expense of the many.
Technology aside, the means of taking advantage is emotional manipulation reinforced by honing with algorithms rewarding length of time and repeat visits to particular content, deliberately provocative and inflammatory. The prospect of artificial intelligence raises more alarms – though largely because of misconceptions, positive and negative, about its capabilities.
The justification for these captains of industry is the blanket rationale: business should be focused on making profits, nothing else, as espoused by economist and business philosopher, Milton Friedman. And challenged regarding its relevance today or historically in an interesting spin by two MIT Business School professors!
To paraphrase Marshall McLuhan from his 1964 work, “The medium has become the message” in this brave, new world of digital technology and information.
its potential dangers have been discussed in many other studies such as Jean M. Twenge’s immediate and possible long-term influences on the digital generation of kids and Dipayan Ghosh’s reflections on negative impacts of Silicon Valley technology. Never have so many given freely what was theirs to control for short-term benefit.
The last chapter proposes various ways to redress the imbalances between digital and human capabilities and relationships. The key is a fundamental attitude shift: machine learning and artificial intelligence are not tools for authoritarian surveillance and control but opportunities for complementary endeavors aiding people:
“…digital technologies can complement humans by :
• Improving the productivity of workers in their current jobs
• Creating new tasks with the help of machine intelligence augmenting human capabilities
• Providing better, more usable information for human decision making
• Building new platforms that bring together people with different skills and needs”
The work seems longer than need be and will require a commitment to finish. That said, it is a challenging, enlightening path providing much to consider.
(Here are links to my Amazon posted reviews of related books to this subject:
Dipayan Ghosh’s 2020 “Terms of Disservice: How Silicon Valley is Destructive by Design”: https://www.amazon.com/review/R83Z256...
Jean M. Twenge’s 2017 work, “iGen”:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/review/R2EY...)
Are technology and the underlying science a force for good or evil?
Jonathan Swift, Mary Shelley, Nathaniel Hawthorne and many more authors have pondered this question and its ominous implications for civilization. Now this age-old question debate gets a fresh perspective in terms of its social-economic impacts and benefits.
Daron Acemoglu’s and Simon Johnson’s 2023 detailed and thoughtful treatise, “Power and Progress: Our 1000-Year Struggle Over Technology & Prosperity”, investigates humanity’s experience with disruptive technologies and who enjoys the benefits. Both are accomplished MIT professors: Acemoglu is Institute Professor Economics and Samuel Johnson, Professor of Entrepreneurship in the Sloan School.
The fundamental questions they raise:
• What represents power and progress for human social, political and economic processes and institutions when disruptive technologies arrive in the marketplace?
• Who gains immediately and at what cost to broader participation in the benefits?
• Are there steps that can encourage wider-reaching benefits for the common good?
Their work is presented in eleven chapters following a prologue asking “What is Progress?” The first seven chapters presents historical examples of disruptive technologies and their impacts at the time.
These keys points are: major technological inventions come along and are controlled by a few – the innovators and a tight cluster of those with the power to regulate the distribution of benefits. The trickle-down socio-economic impacts of these advances for the workers and general public are slow.
The three later chapters (8 - 10) focus on contemporary issues with today’s technology – the rise of digital information storage, analysis, distribution, tracking and exploitation for content control and advertising revenues – which readers may want to go straight to.
There is a notable shift in perspective: though perhaps better disguised, the exploitation is less about natural and more about human resources. In an ironic twist the new phase is with the enthusiastic consent of those being exploited. The end result is still immediate enrichment of a few at the expense of the many.
Technology aside, the means of taking advantage is emotional manipulation reinforced by honing with algorithms rewarding length of time and repeat visits to particular content, deliberately provocative and inflammatory. The prospect of artificial intelligence raises more alarms – though largely because of misconceptions, positive and negative, about its capabilities.
The justification for these captains of industry is the blanket rationale: business should be focused on making profits, nothing else, as espoused by economist and business philosopher, Milton Friedman. And challenged regarding its relevance today or historically in an interesting spin by two MIT Business School professors!
To paraphrase Marshall McLuhan from his 1964 work, “The medium has become the message” in this brave, new world of digital technology and information.
its potential dangers have been discussed in many other studies such as Jean M. Twenge’s immediate and possible long-term influences on the digital generation of kids and Dipayan Ghosh’s reflections on negative impacts of Silicon Valley technology. Never have so many given freely what was theirs to control for short-term benefit.
The last chapter proposes various ways to redress the imbalances between digital and human capabilities and relationships. The key is a fundamental attitude shift: machine learning and artificial intelligence are not tools for authoritarian surveillance and control but opportunities for complementary endeavors aiding people:
“…digital technologies can complement humans by :
• Improving the productivity of workers in their current jobs
• Creating new tasks with the help of machine intelligence augmenting human capabilities
• Providing better, more usable information for human decision making
• Building new platforms that bring together people with different skills and needs”
The work seems longer than need be and will require a commitment to finish. That said, it is a challenging, enlightening path providing much to consider.
(Here are links to my Amazon posted reviews of related books to this subject:
Dipayan Ghosh’s 2020 “Terms of Disservice: How Silicon Valley is Destructive by Design”: https://www.amazon.com/review/R83Z256...
Jean M. Twenge’s 2017 work, “iGen”:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/review/R2EY...)
July 29, 2023
As of earlier this year, Daron Acemoglu is the world’s greatest living authority on the subject of economic growth. But for lay people like you and me he’s also the man who explained to us over two mesmerizing, fact-crammed tomes:
1. “Why Nations Fail” (answer: when they are missing one of two necessary ingredients: inclusive -as opposed to extractive- economic institutions and inclusive -as opposed to extractive- political institutions)
2. The workings of “The Narrow Corridor” toward achieving inclusive institutions (answer: the power of society and the power of the state must (i) be in balance (ii) grow together and feed off of each other)
He’s now changed collaborator, from Robinson to Johnson (author of *that* Atlantic article) and has tackled a subject that is as topical today as the ascent of China was back in 2012, when we were all wondering if its growth would continue or stall.
This time Acemoglu has trained his acumen and, more importantly, his pen on the position and power of technology in our society.
I won’t make you wait. Two defining elements of the earlier books are missing here:
First, and more superficially, if you loved the breathless style of “Why Nations Fail” and “The Narrow Corridor” where every five pages you’re jumping from ancient Mesopotamia to Venice to Kamehameha’s Hawaii to Apartheid South Africa and from there back to ancient Athens, you ain’t getting that here.
Those two books I would characterize as a kaleidoscope of places you’ve never been to, interspersed with the odd visit to a place you know well, described well enough and along orthodox enough lines for you to trust the authors’ interpretations of the places you don’t know about. Instead, Power and Progress visits only five or six periods in time that are dealt with more thoroughly.
Second, and much more importantly, you can’t summarize the message of this book in one line. Power and Progress is much more a moan than it is a forensic proof of a thesis.
Or rather, the thesis is only present in the Acemoglu chapters and absent in the Johnson chapters. (And yes, here you can tell them apart easily, which I could not do in the previous two books) And it’s rather technical, more of a mathematical identity than a sociological concept: if a new technology can be of service to the many then it’s a force for good, but if the new tech can be usurped by a powerful few to replace the work of the many without providing them an alternative occupation then progress will be postponed until the many can also use the new technology to pursue their own ends.
Well, tell me something I don’t know…
Regardless, it was a book worth reading.
It starts with an amazing first chapter about a proto-Elon Musk of his time, Ferdinand de Lesseps, who applied his powers of persuasion to turn the Suez Canal into reality and one more time to leave death and destruction behind him in trying to repeat his first success in Panama.
Later in the book the authors give their account of how we all became (figuratively) slaves to the cultivation of grain and also their account of how actual slaves were used to produce cotton. In contrast to these poor developments (where power was abused to take advantage of new technology) they dedicate a big part of the book to the history of the steam engine and the sociological underpinnings of the sundry contributors to the relevant technology, before moving on to today’s tech barons via the robber barons of the late nineteenth century.
But it’s a blur and every time the authors stop to “take stock” of the story they just told you, you’d be well-advised to skip and look for the next story.
So here’s your plan. By all means buy the book, if only for the amazing tale of Ferdinand de Lesseps.
But unless you’ve been hiding under a rock the past few years do not expect to learn a single thing here about what’s wrong today with our society. Neither Robert Bork’s story nor the crisis of 2008 is covered here from a novel angle.
So read Power and Progress for the stories you don’t know, but don’t expect to be able to discuss any new ideas with your friends that you first read here.
1. “Why Nations Fail” (answer: when they are missing one of two necessary ingredients: inclusive -as opposed to extractive- economic institutions and inclusive -as opposed to extractive- political institutions)
2. The workings of “The Narrow Corridor” toward achieving inclusive institutions (answer: the power of society and the power of the state must (i) be in balance (ii) grow together and feed off of each other)
He’s now changed collaborator, from Robinson to Johnson (author of *that* Atlantic article) and has tackled a subject that is as topical today as the ascent of China was back in 2012, when we were all wondering if its growth would continue or stall.
This time Acemoglu has trained his acumen and, more importantly, his pen on the position and power of technology in our society.
I won’t make you wait. Two defining elements of the earlier books are missing here:
First, and more superficially, if you loved the breathless style of “Why Nations Fail” and “The Narrow Corridor” where every five pages you’re jumping from ancient Mesopotamia to Venice to Kamehameha’s Hawaii to Apartheid South Africa and from there back to ancient Athens, you ain’t getting that here.
Those two books I would characterize as a kaleidoscope of places you’ve never been to, interspersed with the odd visit to a place you know well, described well enough and along orthodox enough lines for you to trust the authors’ interpretations of the places you don’t know about. Instead, Power and Progress visits only five or six periods in time that are dealt with more thoroughly.
Second, and much more importantly, you can’t summarize the message of this book in one line. Power and Progress is much more a moan than it is a forensic proof of a thesis.
Or rather, the thesis is only present in the Acemoglu chapters and absent in the Johnson chapters. (And yes, here you can tell them apart easily, which I could not do in the previous two books) And it’s rather technical, more of a mathematical identity than a sociological concept: if a new technology can be of service to the many then it’s a force for good, but if the new tech can be usurped by a powerful few to replace the work of the many without providing them an alternative occupation then progress will be postponed until the many can also use the new technology to pursue their own ends.
Well, tell me something I don’t know…
Regardless, it was a book worth reading.
It starts with an amazing first chapter about a proto-Elon Musk of his time, Ferdinand de Lesseps, who applied his powers of persuasion to turn the Suez Canal into reality and one more time to leave death and destruction behind him in trying to repeat his first success in Panama.
Later in the book the authors give their account of how we all became (figuratively) slaves to the cultivation of grain and also their account of how actual slaves were used to produce cotton. In contrast to these poor developments (where power was abused to take advantage of new technology) they dedicate a big part of the book to the history of the steam engine and the sociological underpinnings of the sundry contributors to the relevant technology, before moving on to today’s tech barons via the robber barons of the late nineteenth century.
But it’s a blur and every time the authors stop to “take stock” of the story they just told you, you’d be well-advised to skip and look for the next story.
So here’s your plan. By all means buy the book, if only for the amazing tale of Ferdinand de Lesseps.
But unless you’ve been hiding under a rock the past few years do not expect to learn a single thing here about what’s wrong today with our society. Neither Robert Bork’s story nor the crisis of 2008 is covered here from a novel angle.
So read Power and Progress for the stories you don’t know, but don’t expect to be able to discuss any new ideas with your friends that you first read here.
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