Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee

discuss

The Second Machine Age:
Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies

in conversation with MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI

$5 tickets on sale now

This event includes a book signing

Date

Feb
3
Monday
February 3, 2014
7:00 PM ET

Location

Brattle Theatre
40 Brattle St., Cambridge, MA 02138

Tickets

Harvard Book Store is pleased to welcome the director of the MIT Center for Digital Business, ERIK BRYNJOLFSSON, and ANDREW MCAFEE, one of the principal research scientists at the Center, for a discussion of their book, The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies. The authors will be joined in conversation by MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI, co-host of WBUR's Radio Boston.

A revolution is under way.

In recent years, Google’s autonomous cars have logged thousands of miles on American highways and IBM’s Watson trounced the best human Jeopardy! players. Digital technologies—with hardware, software, and networks at their core—will in the near future diagnose diseases more accurately than doctors can, apply enormous data sets to transform retailing, and accomplish many tasks once considered uniquely human.

In The Second Machine Age MIT’s Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee—two thinkers at the forefront of their field—reveal the forces driving the reinvention of our lives and our economy. As the full impact of digital technologies is felt, we will realize immense bounty in the form of dazzling personal technology, advanced infrastructure, and near-boundless access to the cultural items that enrich our lives.

Amid this bounty will also be wrenching change. Professions of all kinds—from lawyers to truck drivers—will be forever upended. Companies will be forced to transform or die. Recent economic indicators reflect this shift: fewer people are working, and wages are falling even as productivity and profits soar.

Drawing on years of research and up-to-the-minute trends, Brynjolfsson and McAfee identify the best strategies for survival and offer a new path to prosperity. These include revamping education so that it prepares people for the next economy instead of the last one, designing new collaborations that pair brute processing power with human ingenuity, and embracing policies that make sense in a radically transformed landscape.

A fundamentally optimistic book, The Second Machine Age will alter how we think about issues of technological, societal, and economic progress.

Andrew McAfee
Andrew McAfee

Andrew McAfee

Andrew McAfee is the Co-Founder and Co-Director of MIT’s Initiative on the Digital Economy and a Principal Research Scientist at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He is the author of More from Less and the coauthor of The Second Machine Age. His next book The Geek Way will be published by Little, Brown in 2023.

Photo credit: Evgenia Eliseeva

Erik Brynjolfsson
Erik Brynjolfsson

Erik Brynjolfsson

Erik Brynjolfsson is the director of the MIT Center for Digital Business and one of the most cited scholars in information systems and economics. He is a cofounder of MIT's Initiative on the Digital Economy, along with Andrew McAfee. He and McAfee are the only people named to both the Thinkers 50 list of the world’s top management thinkers and the Politico 50 group of people transforming American politics.

Meghna Chakrabarti
Meghna Chakrabarti

Meghna Chakrabarti

Meghna Chakrabarti is the award-winning host and editor of On Point. Based in Boston, she is on the air Monday through Friday. Chakrabarti is the former host of Radio Boston, WBUR’s acclaimed weekday local show. She's the former host of Modern Love: The Podcast, a collaboration of WBUR and the New York Times (2016-2020) and was the primary fill-in host for Here & Now, NPR and WBUR's midday show. She reported on New England transportation and energy issues for WBUR’s news department.

Photo Credit: Liz Linder Photography

Online ticket sales have now ended. Tickets are still available at Harvard Book Store and over the phone at 617-661-1515 until 4pm. Remaining tickets will be on sale at the door of the Brattle Theatre when we open doors at about 5:30.

Please note that your ticket ONLY guarantees you admission until five minutes before an event begins. Additionally, tickets purchased online may only be picked up at the venue the night of the event, and cannot be picked up in-store beforehand. $5 tickets are also coupons, good for $5 off an in-store purchase at Harvard Book Store. Coupons expire one month after the event, and cannot be used for online purchases, event tickets, discounted items, or gift certificates.

All ticket purchases are non-refundable.

Brattle Theatre
40 Brattle St., Cambridge, MA 02138

Walking from the Harvard Square T station: 10 minutes

As you exit the station, cross Mass. Ave. and proceed along Brattle St. Follow Brattle St. as it curves to the right in Brattle Square (follow the sidewalk on the right side of the street). The Brattle will be on the left-hand side of the street. The building is shared with Algiers Cafe and Alden & Harlow Restaurant, and the theatre entrance is on the left side of the building—look for the sidewalk poster case and marquee.

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