Book of the week: Average Is Over: Powering America Beyond the Age of the Great Stagnation by Tyler Cowen

Tyler Cowen predicts that the gap between the haves and have-nots will widen as “genius machines” assume a greater role in the economy.

(Dutton, $27)

Tyler Cowen has seen the future, and it’s not pretty, said Robert Herritt in TheDailyBeast.com. In his provocative and “genuinely enlightening” new book, the university economist and influential blogger matter-of-factly predicts that the gap in America between the haves and have-nots will widen dramatically as “genius machines” assume an ever greater role in the economy. “Even a few years ago, this forecast would have sounded silly,” but “Cowen’s not talking about flying cars.” He’s talking about shopping carts that monitor your path through the supermarket, workplace performance being recorded and digitally analyzed, and wearable devices that know more about our emotional states than we do. Cowen’s advice? Be a person whose efforts complement the work of these computers or get used to falling wages. “Many of society’s lower earners,” he writes, “will have to reshape their tastes toward cheaper desires.”

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