Preface ­ We’re all ­either benefactors or victims of automation in one way or another. If you order something online, the pro­cess is highly automated and you can receive what you ordered fairly quickly. When you call your cable, insur- ance, or credit card com­pany, a robotic voice typically guides you to what you need (if ­you’re lucky). Yet in recent years, the automation age has acquired a new power, presence, and reach that threatens to create mass unemployment—or not. Thousands of stores have closed and hundreds of thousands have lost their jobs. The debate goes both ways: ­There ­will ­either be an apocalyptic, auto- mated takeover of nearly half the ­labor force (or more), or so many new jobs ­will be created that it ­will be something akin to a new employment boon. In this book, I’m exploring both points of view. If both predictions— or just one—­are correct, you’ll be able to benefit from what I’ve discovered in more than two years of research. How I came to this book is a serendipitous journey. Although my inter- est ranges from the environment and finance to business biography, the history of robotics and automation presented itself first to me through the biography of the ­great inventor Nikola Tesla. My book Lightning Strikes: Timeless Lessons in Creativity from the Life and Work of Nikola Tesla (2016) not only afforded me insights into one of the world’s most creative minds, it showed me how automation started with one ­simple idea. (Tesla, as you’ll discover, had a large role in the creation of robotics). More impor- tantly, I managed to do a deep dive into the nature of ­human creativity, which informs this book throughout (more on Tesla in chapter 1). What did I learn? Not only was my own creativity challenged in writing the book over a dozen-­year span, but I was able to identify what makes us unique as ­humans. Some of our skills ­can’t be easily duplicated by
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