The Driver in the Driverless Car: How Your Technology Choices Create the Future

"[An] excellent and wide-ranging review of our responses to accelerating technological change" from the authors of Your Happiness Was Hacked (Financial Times). Tech experts Vivek Wadhwa and Alex Salkever describe dozens of astonishing technological advances in this fascinating and thought-provoking book, which asks what kind of future lies ahead--Star Trek or Mad Max? Breakthroughs such as personalized genomics, drones, self-driving vehicles, and artificial intelligence could make our lives healthier, safer, and easier. On the other hand, the same technologies raise the specter of a frightening future--eugenics, a jobless economy, a complete loss of privacy, and ever-worsening economic inequality. Wadhwa says that we need to ask three questions about every emerging technology: Does it have the potential to benefit everyone equally? What are the risks and the rewards? And does it promote autonomy or dependence? This edition is updated throughout and includes a new chapter on quantum computing, which promises vastly increased processing times--and vastly increased security risks. In the end, our future is up to us; our hands may not be on the wheel, but we will decide the driverless car's destination. "Vivek raises one of the most important issues of our time--the use of technology to uplift rather than displace humans. His book provides an invaluable guide for assessing the benefits and risks of future technologies." --Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft "Exponential technologies are about to transform every aspect of our lives . . . Vivek provides you a clear and authoritative blueprint for assessing their benefits and risks." --Peter H. Diamandis, MD, New York Times-bestselling author of Bold

About the Author :
Vivek Wadhwa is a distinguished fellow at Harvard Law School and Carnegie Mellon University's College of Engineering in Silicon Valley. He is the bestselling author of Your Happiness Was Hacked, The Driver in the Driverless Car, The Immigrant Exodus, and Innovating Women. He has been a globally syndicated columnist for the Washington Post and held appointments at Duke University, Stanford Law School, Emory University, and Singularity University. Alex Salkever served as vice president of marketing communications at Mozilla. He was a technology editor of BusinessWeek and a regular science contributor to the Christian Science Monitor. He is the coauthor of The Driver in the Driverless Car and The Immigrant Exodus. He continues to write and consult in technology.

Review :
"....a succinct and provocative examination of the social and ethical implications of breakthroughs." - 2017 Financial Times & McKinsey Business Book of the Year - Long List "Writing with Alex Salkever, Wadhwa ranges over applications from genome editing and the Internet of Things to artificial intelligence, weighing up their potential for risk and the universality of any benefits. Readers may not all share his enthusiasm for autonomous vehicles, but his pointed analyses of the coming transformations add nuance to the debate." --Barbara Kiser, Books in Brief, Nature Magazine "I strongly recommend this well-written book. You would be hard put to find another review of technological advance that covers so much ground so succinctly -- and at times so provocatively." --Clive Cookson, Financial Times Summer Books of 2017: Science "Of all the books I have read so far this year, 'The Driver in the Driverless Car - How our technology choices will create the future' by American technology guru Vivek Wadhwa and tech journalist Alex Salkever impressed me the most." --Kofi Annan Foundation, Summer Book Club 2017 "Vivek raises one of the most important issues of our time -- the use of technology to uplift rather than displace humans. His book provides an invaluable guide for assessing the benefits and risks of future technologies." --Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft "Exponential technologies are about to transform every aspect of our lives. Understanding the potential and implications of these technologies is crucial to every person and every company. In this book, Vivek provides you a clear and authoritative blueprint for assessing their benefits and risks." --Peter H. Diamandis, MD, cofounder and Executive Chairman, Singularity University, and author of New York Times bestsellers Abundance and Bold "Realizing the promise of the accelerating returns in front of us while avoiding the peril is arguably the most important issue for humankind's future. Vivek's new book articulately and insightfully examines the contours of both." --Ray Kurzweil, inventor, futurist, and author of The Singularity Is Near and How to Create a Mind "Brilliant book! Our constantly-in-change world is now running on 'exponential time, ' and this disruption has huge consequences. Vivek gives us the prism to make sense of it all." --John Sculley, former CEO, Apple "Vivek possesses the brilliance and vision to foretell the technological path that will define our future. More important, he has the heart and compassion to trumpet the clarion call so that, as business leaders, we know how to take our employees with us on this journey of innovative enlightenment." --Lynn Tilton, CEO, Patriarch Partners, LLC "The questions this book raises are too important to be ignored by our political leaders or by the general public. Vivek Wadhwa compellingly explains the awesome opportunities technological advances hold for us. He also demonstrates the urgent need to establish a new system of governance to ensure that we can reap the rewards while containing the risks awaiting us." --Kofi Annan, seventh United Nations Secretary General; corecipient of the Nobel Peace Prize; and founder and Chairman, Kofi Annan Foundation