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What it argues
The Second Machine Age is Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee's argument that digital technology has entered a qualitatively new phase — one in which machines can perform cognitive tasks previously reserved for humans, creating economic disruption and opportunity simultaneously. The first machine age was the Industrial Revolution, which automated physical labor. The second machine age automates mental work.
The book's starting framework is exponential growth. Brynjolfsson and McAfee use the famous parable of the inventor who asked for one grain of rice on the first square of a chessboard, two on the second, four on the third, and so on — producing a number larger than all the rice ever grown. They argue that digital technology has reached the second half of the chessboard, where the doublings start producing truly enormous numbers. Computing power, storage, bandwidth, and the capabilities built on them are now in this phase.
What it gets right
- 1.
Digital technology has entered a qualitatively new phase in which cognitive work is being automated alongside physical work — the second machine age, analogous to the first machine age of industrialization.
- 2.
Exponential growth in computing creates nonlinear effects: capabilities that seem modest double after double eventually become transformative, and many organizations are in the second half of the chessboard.
- 3.
Automation creates bounty — greater output, lower prices, more variety — and spread — growing inequality between workers who complement technology and workers who compete with it.
What it covers
Who wrote it
Erik Brynjolfsson is a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and director of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy. Andrew McAfee is a research scientist at MIT and co-director of the Initiative on the Digital Economy. Together they also wrote Race Against the Machine (2012), a shorter precursor to this book. Both are economists who study how digital technologies affect businesses, jobs, and the broader economy. They draw on both empirical labor economics research and broader technology trends analysis.
