Machine: 70 Years, a Chaotic Compilation

"Machine: 70 Years," a Chaotic Compilation

Judging from its title alone, Machine: 70 Years: How the Internet, Big Data, and Artificial Intelligence Are Transforming Humanity is clearly trying to cover far too much. Generally speaking, books with such an oversized ambition are difficult to write well, and this one is no exception. From the main title, it presents itself as a history of the past seventy years of the information age. To tell that history well, one must not only be thoroughly familiar with the major threads of the information age and how they developed, but also possess a commanding perspective and genuinely original insights. Doing that well requires the kind of deep industry experience and analytical ability one would expect from a true master. Meanwhile, the subtitle suggests that the book also wants to offer forward-looking discussions of big data and artificial intelligence, which demands an even more cutting-edge point of view. That makes the task harder still.

Such a large subject is clearly beyond the author’s grasp. The book as a whole feels structurally messy and lacks a clear central thread. It reads more like a collection of scattered blog posts, casual essays, or speeches than a book with a defined theme and coherent line of thought. If the author had better organized the recurring topics and materials woven throughout the book, and maintained a more consistent level of narrative control, it might have turned out much stronger.

What the book offers most of all is an accumulation and arrangement of source material, and in that respect the author’s skill as a technology columnist is evident. Whether citing classics or more specialized popular works, the references are handled quite well. So at the very least, the book is a passable work of general science writing and a serviceable compilation of materials. Most of the stories in it are familiar episodes and classic cases from the industry, but for readers who do not know much about information science, they will probably still feel fresh and worth reading. As for the author’s practice of mixing personal experiences with more technical discussion, it may not feel especially professional from a purely literary standpoint—particularly compared with bestselling foreign books of a similar kind—but it does add some accessibility and personality, along with a few individualized examples. That can be counted as one of the book’s modest virtues.

Beyond those personal anecdotes, however, the book contains very few ideas that are truly thought-provoking or striking. Compared with the large number of stories and views it quotes, its own contribution lacks originality. Although the author does attempt to present some personal opinions and reflections, more often than not he is simply restating ideas that already exist. In general, if a book does not offer even a single original insight and merely compiles materials and paraphrases established viewpoints, then it is not really worth reading—unless it is a textbook or reference work. This book falls squarely into that category.

In the information age, humanity no longer faces a shortage of information, but rather information overload. Knowledge is now produced far faster than any individual can learn it. Under such circumstances, the ability to filter information effectively becomes even more important. In literature, works that continue to attract large numbers of readers after the test of time are naturally classics. But works from the information age are different: the times develop so rapidly that many such books are highly time-sensitive. Truly forward-looking technology books like Hackers & Painters, which can still feel prescient decades later, are exceedingly rare. In that context, it is perhaps inevitable that books like this one appear—books that mix the good with the mediocre, published for the sake of publishing. When faced with that situation, readers probably need to make a more rounded judgment based on three things: the publisher, the author’s reputation, and the word of mouth surrounding the book.