Mindless

Why Smarter Machines are Making Dumber Humans

Contributors

By Simon Head

Formats and Prices

Price

$26.99

Price

$30.00 CAD

Format

Format:

  1. Hardcover $26.99 $30.00 CAD
  2. ebook $16.99 $21.99 CAD

This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around February 11, 2014. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.

We live in the age of Computer Business Systems (CBSs) — the highly complex, computer-intensive management programs on which large organizations increasingly rely. In Mindless, Simon Head argues that these systems have come to trump human expertise, dictating the goals and strategies of a wide array of businesses, and de-skilling the jobs of middle class workers in the process. CBSs are especially dysfunctional, Head argues, when they apply their disembodied expertise to transactions between humans, as in health care, education, customer relations, and human resources management. And yet there are industries with more human approaches, as Head illustrates with specific examples, whose lead we must follow and extend to the mainstream American economy.

Mindless illustrates the shortcomings of CBS, providing an in-depth and disturbing look at how human dignity is slipping as we become cogs on a white collar assembly line.
Request Desk/Exam Copy

Genre:

On Sale
Feb 11, 2014
Page Count
240 pages
Publisher
Basic Books
ISBN-13
9780465018444

Simon Head

About the Author

Simon Head, a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University and Senior Member of St. Antony’s College at Oxford University, serves as the Director of Programs at the New York Review of Books Foundation. He divides his time between Oxford, England and New York.

Learn more about this author