The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies

The first machine age augmented physical force; the second augments cognitive capacity. Brynjolfsson and McAfee argue that we are at an inflection point where digital technologies begin doing for mental work what the steam engine did for physical work. They introduce the productivity paradox — the statistics do not yet reflect the transformation — and the J-curve: at first productivity falls because you are investing in reorganisation, and then it rises. A solid base to read the current AI moment without falling into "nothing changes" or "everything changes" caricatures.