Machine, Platform, Crowd

Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson, W.W. Norton, 402 pages, $28.95.

In 2014, Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology published "The Second Machine Age." The book was a balanced portrait of how new digital technologies were poised to improve society, even as they increased unemployment and depressed wages. In their latest work, "Machine, Platform, Crowd," the authors seek to explain the business implications behind these developments. McAfee and Brynjolfsson believe that the latest phase of computers and the internet have created three shifts in how work happens. The first is artificial intelligence (AI): a move from man to machine. You need only look at self-driving cars, online language translation and Amazon's prototype cashierless shops to see that something big is happening. The second is a shift from products to platforms. Many people encounter evidence of this every day. The largest cab service owns no vehicles (Uber) and the biggest hotelier no property (Airbnb). There are more than 2.2 million apps in Apple's store, almost none of which the company developed itself. Platforms are a way for companies to create marketplaces that allow both sides of the transaction to flourish — while the firm, as gatekeeper, enjoys a tidy revenue stream. The third shift is from the core to the crowd. Think bitcoin or other platforms that cut out the middle man. For an astute romp through important digital trends, "Machine, Platform, Crowd" is hard to beat.

ECONOMIST