Review Praise for In the Age of the Smart Machine: 'A work of rare originality and engrossing complexity * New York Times Book Review * Ground-breaking, magisterial and synthetically brilliant * Technology and Culture * Examined with force and almost cunning insight what is yet to come * Encyclopedia of Software Engineering * About the Author Shoshana Zuboff has been called 'the true prophet of the information age' by the Financial Times for her ground-breaking book, In the Age of the Smart Machine. She is now the Charles Edward Wilson Professor Emerita at Harvard Business School as well as Faculty Associate at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. In 2006, strategy+business magazine named her one of the eleven most original business thinkers in the world.
J**C
A "must read" for anyone with their eyes open.
The subject of this book is so important that it joins Kahneman's "Thinking, fast and slow" as a book that should be read by EVERY PERSON who wants to understand what is going on. If you only read the introduction it will have been worthwhile buying it and then at least, in a few years you will not be able to say "I didn't see it coming". But don't wait a few years – get thinking about it now before it's too late.The book is very thoroughly researched and up to date (2019). The information it presents is enough to feed an army of conspiracy theorists but in this case it is real. As william Burroughs said “A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what's going on.” This is deeply scary stuff and her analysis of it reveals the power play behind the strategy behind the technology.The only problem with the book is its length – I feel it could be condensed to about ⅔ of its present size without losing much. There is a Resumé edition, but only in french: maybe an english language version of this would bring her work to the wide audience it deserves.
S**N
The truth is way more terrifying than most know.
The book is a little dry at first and the author a bit overly wordy. But this I feel, is the most critical read of the decade. virtually no one I know understands exactly how deep this rabbit hole of surveillance goes. this book is easily the scariest thing I have read since "the Shock Doctrine" by Naomi Klein. I am no stranger to the subject but was blown away by how little I knew, how little is reported and how extensive the push for not just surveillance, but Outright Behavior control on a massive scale, is being forced on us, knowingly by the tech giants.If you think Russia meddling in our politics was bad, you will be horrified by what Google and Facebook have going and have planned.If you want to understand where we are headed, where we already are, how we got here to begin with and the gravity of the ramifications of this subject, you NEED to read this book.
G**N
Very Important Subject.
It’s a shame that Dr. Zuboff devalued her powerful insights and understanding of this largely ignored but vital issue by couching it in the terms of her political framework.
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