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

Among other things, they found that the number of words in English increased by more than 70 percent between 1950 and 2000

Hemingway’s quote about how a man goes broke: “Gradually and then suddenly.”5

Technological progress is going to leave behind some people, perhaps even a lot of people, as it races ahead

digitization is going to bring with it some thorny challenges.

the transformations brought about by digital technology will be profoundly beneficial ones.

Digitization is improving the physical world, and these improvements are only going to become more important

We also consume information from books and friends, entertainment from superstars and amateurs, expertise from teachers and doctors, and countless other things that are not made of atoms

we’re at an inflection point—a point where the curve starts to bend a lot—because of computers. We are entering a second machine age.

The first is that we’re living in a time of astonishing progress with digital technologies—those that have computer hardware, software, and networks at their core

mental power is at least as important for progress and development—for mastering our physical and intellectual environment to get things done—as physical power. So a vast and unprecedented boost to mental power should be a great boost to humanity, just as the ealier boost to physical power so clearly was.