- Published: 15 January 2016
- ISBN: 9780099597452
- Imprint: Vintage
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 288
- RRP: $30.00
The Glass Cage
Where Automation is Taking Us
- Published: 15 January 2016
- ISBN: 9780099597452
- Imprint: Vintage
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 288
- RRP: $30.00
Nicholas Carr is among the most lucid, thoughtful and necessary thinkers alive. The Glass Cage should be required reading for everyone with a phone
Jonathan Safran Foer
Written with restrained objectivity, The Glass Cage is nevertheless as scary as any sci-fi thriller could be
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
Nicholas Carr is the rare thinker who understands that technological progress is both essential and worrying. The Glass Cage is a call for technology that complements our human capabilities, rather than replacing them
Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody
A very necessary book, that we ignore at our peril. I read it without putting it down
Iain McGilchrist, author of The Master and His Emissary
An eye-opening exposé of how automation is altering our ability to solve problems, forge memories and acquire skills
Bookseller
Brings a much-needed humanistic perspective to the wider issues of automation … a persuasive … wide-ranging book
Financial Times
A valuable corrective to the belief that technology will cure all ills, and a passionate plea to keep machines the servants of humans, not the other way round
Sunday Times
An important book ... deep and valuable
The Times
Excellent … beautifully written … Put down your phone, take off your Google Glass and read this
BBC Focus
Elegantly persuasive … In his thoughtful, non-strident way, he is simply pointing out that the cost of automation may be far higher than we have realised
Telegraph
Carr argues, very convincingly, that automation is eroding our memory while simultaneously creating a complacency within us that will diminish our ability to gain new skills … I had always wondered if it were possible Google Maps was ruining my sense of direction. Now I am certain of it
Evening Standard
Fascinating … With digital technology today we are roughly at the stage we were with the car in the 1950s – dazzled by its possibilities and unwilling to think seriously about its costs … [this] nuanced account … is very good
New Statesman
Who is it serving, this technology, asks Carr. Us? Or the companies that make billions from it? Billions that have shown no evidence of trickling down … It’s hard not to read the chapter on lethal autonomous robots – technology that already exists – without thinking of the perpetual warfare of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four
Observer
A powerful and compelling book.
Mail on Sunday