“You’ve gotta see some of the new stuff we’ve got. Dustin, show him the wall. I’m just calling it the wall.”
– Mark Zuckerberg character as written by Aaron Sorkin in The Social Network
Kevin Roose’s new book, Futureproof: 9 Rules for Humans in the Age of Automation sits in that marketing sweet spot — compelling idea inoculated with just the right amount of fear to stimulate a purchase. After all, show of hands — who can relate to the fear of being replaced at your job by technology? One invisible challenge with living in a Technological Revolution is it’s hard to identify a Technological Revolution when you’re living through it. History is a better sleuth at that sort of thing.
One of the clearer insights in Futureproof: A.I. cannot replace mankind’s capacity for creativity. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are among this year’s buzzwords pulsing Vegas-like from Silicon Valley. But like Vegas, the promise of both is less relevant right now. Just take a look at Facebook’s failed efforts at relegating content moderation to algorithms rather than people. Turns out, people are better at editing, better at connecting socio-cultural contexts and content’s intertextuality.