Category: Philosophy & Worldview

  • The Rise of the Robots

    Martin Ford

    The bad news – it would seem that the robocracy is inevitable. The good news – this is a very well written book!
    In most robotics and AI narratives, what gets lost is the nuance as folks very firmly root themselves in polarising camps on the future of our species. The reason why this book worked for me was because its focus was less on the dramatic headline (what) and more on why it would happen. It is a very well researched book and sets about debunking popular schools of thought in a very clinical manner. The author is also wise enough to call out the things he is not sure of and mention alternate points of view, as well as objective enough to not fall for the hype of everything that’s new and supposedly disruptive.

    Though he does begin with the now ascertained fact that the first wave of automation will take away the routine and predictable jobs, he also warns that it won’t stop there. Even what we would call the higher end jobs will be safe only for a while longer. He is clear that this is a wave of disruption different from what we have seen before because the cognitive abilities that get developed will be replicable and scalable. He also demolishes a couple of currently popular coping mechanisms – consistent re-skilling, and man-machine collaboration.

    The second half of the book focuses on the economic and societal implications of the rise of the robots. He predicts the fall of middle class demand as well as economic mobility, as incomes stagnate or disappear completely, and warns that economic growth would not be sustainable since robots cannot be expected to be consumers, and the plutocracy (top 5% of the population) which has the money can only consume so much!

    The solution he believes in is some version of a universal income which would ensure the participation of a larger segment of the population and give some semblance of prosperity to everyone. But he also sees several challenges in execution.

    Beyond the broader narrative, there are some fascinating statistics and anecdotes – the development of Watson, the scarily increasing time it takes for employment to regain its original levels after a recession, the sale price of Internet behemoths (YouTube, Instagram, Whatsapp) framed as a cost/employee, and so on.

    While the outcomes may not really be palatable to anyone who belongs to the species, it doesn’t take away from what a fascinating read this is!

  • The Sovereign Individual

    James Dale Davidson, William Rees-Mogg

    One of my favourite books is The Moral Animal. It does a great job of explaining the connection between the mental organs and behaviour, and does justice to the explanatory line on its cover – “why we are the way we are”. I liked it a lot because it did a stellar job of helping me understand the reasons behind my mindset, relationships and interactions with the world at large. While that book helped me understand myself, this one helped me understand the world much better.

    Considering that it was published in 1997, this is as much a prediction machine as it is a brilliant book. It took at least till the middle of the last decade for even the internet to manifest itself in the form we are now familiar with. Therefore, accurately predicting the rise of e-commerce and cryptocurrency (referred to as cyber currency) is a feat in itself. The projections are not just in the field of business but cover social, economical, societal, political and even moral aspects as well. For instance, the rise of nationalism, filter bubbles, the twist in increasing income disparity (from between nations to within nations) because of lack of access are all themes that are being played out now. (more…)

  • The Gene : An Intimate History

    Siddhartha Mukherjee

    “As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.” probably best describes this book for me. My understanding of the subject grew manifold after reading this book, but I also realised how little we know!

    Perhaps the one question we all seek an answer to is “Why are we here?”. There probably is no universal answer to that question, as science and religion like to approach it in different ways. Personally, I think that purpose is either just a narrative in hindsight, or a story we build to create meaning in our lives.

    Meanwhile, science has raced ahead of religion in explaining “how are we here?” In terms of the two building blocks that have existed before us – atoms and genes – as well as the influence of the one we created – byte. This book is the story of what the author describes as “one of the most powerful and dangerous ideas in the history of science: the gene, the fundamental unit of heredity, and the basic unit of all biological information.” Indeed, it is the history of this unit – from its presence in a human’s mind as an abstract idea to the human attempts to write and rewrite it – that makes up this book. (more…)

  • The Monk and The Philosopher

    Jean-François Revel, Matthieu Ricard

    A biologist turned Buddhist in conversation with a philosopher about the meaning of life. If that isn’t interesting by itself, they happen to be son and father. (respectively) World views separated by time and distance. What really works is that Matthieu Ricard and Jean-François Revel have absolute clarity on the points of view they represent, and yet, are not in the discussion to force their perspectives on the other.

    The scope of the discussion includes scientific research, metaphysics, politics, psychoanalysis, and obviously religion as both share their perspectives on these topics. In many cases, they seem to arrive at the same destination, but via different paths.  (more…)

  • The Moral Animal

    Robert Wright

    The last book I read in 2016 was “This Explains Everything: Deep, Beautiful, and Elegant Theories of How the World Works” where leading thinkers share their favourite deep and elegant theory. An overwhelming number of them cited Darwin’s theory of natural selection, and though I have not been asked, I’d say rightly so. As someone rightly pointed out, the beauty and elegance is when one theory explains a lot of diverse phenomena, and is almost a gift that keeps on giving.
    In The Moral Animal, Robert Wright uses Darwin’s theory to explain exactly what the book’s title says – why we are the way we are, using Darwin’s own life to illustrate several facets of classic human behaviour. I have thus far viewed the brain as a product of evolution, and feelings and emotions as a vague result of biochemistry triggered by the environment and the brain. My views have been shaped by some excellent and diverse books – Sapiens, Scarcity, Finite and Infinite Games – to name a significant few. This book, in many ways, is an amalgamation of the best insights that those have to offer. But the brilliance of the book is in how it goes beyond, and draws the connection between mental organs and behaviour in the modern world.
    The book throws light on the various behaviours we exhibit in our day to day life, many of which have their origins in the hunter-gatherer stage of our species and before. In fact, we even share some traits with our nearest relatives- chimpanzees and bonobos. Almost all facets of our life are addressed – relationship with parents, siblings, spouse, and society in general, politics, sex, friendship, religion etc.

    (more…)