One of the pithiest pop-culture commentaries on digital life is “Computer Says No,” a series of British TV sketches about a rude customer-service rep who takes all her orders from her screen. I first heard about it several years ago from a Dutch technology professor who viewed it as a metaphor for all the ways our gadgets can dehumanize us, if we’re not careful.

More recently, I learned from my 14-year-old son that “Computer Says No” has a following among his middle-school classmates, who not only watch the videos but find all kinds of uses for the refrain. Screen frozen? Can’t get a signal on your smartphone? Just blurt out “Computer says no” in a broad English accent and you feel instantly better. I’ve tried it and it works.

If technology does indeed pose a threat to our happiness, this is how we’ve been trained to think about it – our machines will rob us of our humanity. We’ve been living with machines for a very long time, and that hasn’t happened yet (though sometimes, after an intense day at the screen, I climb into bed feeling quite a bit less human than I was at sunrise). However, in recent years, our machines have been removing something extremely valuable from society: jobs. Yet we haven’t been talking about this very much. After all, computers are popularly viewed as engines of prosperity, creators of jobs, tools for making all kinds of businesses more profitable.

In their new e-book, Race Against The Machine, Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, both of MIT, argue that we need to pay a lot more attention to the rising competence of technology in the workplace. Robots and other kinds of digital “employees” have already made huge inroads into the labor market, and as they grow ever more sophisticated, the trend is only going to accelerate.

Because machines increase productivity and growth, as they’ve been doing for many years, it might seem paradoxical to claim they’re causing economic damage. Yet the authors make a compelling case that this is precisely what’s been happening: “While digital progress grows the overall economic pie, it can do so while leaving some people, or even a lot of them, worse off.”

I met McAfee last year when we were on a panel together at the Boston Book Festival, along with Nicholas Carr, author of The Shallows. After the festival, Andy was headed to Madrid and I recommended that he go for a drink at that city’s breathtaking Palace Hotel. He not only took me up on the tip, but while imbibing at the Palace, used his phone to send me a photo of the place. It was one of those nice interpersonal moments when you’re reminded all over again that the world has been pulled together in a completely new way, and our excellent digital adventure has only begun.

Andy and I have since become friends, and this past summer, when he told me that he and Brynjolfsson were working on a book about technology’s threat to the human labor market, I have to admit I was a little skeptical. Sure, there will be displacements, but isn’t that a normal part of any huge technological shift? If we’re shooting text and images across the world at unheard of speeds, surely we can figure out how to keep ourselves in the picture, and the economy humming.

I still believe that, as do the authors, both self-professed tech optimists. But by the time I was halfway through their book, I was convinced that something insidious and significant has been happening beneath the surface of the economy and, in the short term, the ride could get a lot bumpier. In one dramatic harbinger of the labor future, a Chinese electronics manufacturer recently announced that it’s buying one million robots over the next three years to replace a large chunk of its workforce.

Once upon a time, when the economy grew thanks to technological advancements and the efficiencies they produce, the benefits were widely shared. Today, for several different reasons that the authors incisively lay out, the gains are accruing to an ever-smaller slice of the population – you guessed it, the super-wealthy. Thus, even though we’re all enjoying our iPads and Androids, in the larger economic sense, this “revolution” is making the rich a lot richer, and the unemployment lines longer.

There’s much more to the authors’ argument. Suffice it to say that this is a very cogent and persuasive read – and at just 54 pages, a quick one. And its larger message is not bad news. The book ends with a hopeful nod toward a future in which we humans learn to collaborate better with our technologies, rather than viewing them as the enemy – and an agenda for getting there. If we use our gadgets to tap our own uniquely human strengths (e.g. the creativity and leadership skills that no machine can match), in the long run, there’s no way we can lose.

“We still firmly believe in the promise of the digital frontier. . . . Around the world, economies, societies, and people’s lives have been improved by digital goods and high-tech products; these happy trends will continue, and likely accelerate.”

It’s an inspiring vision, one to which all of us, computers included, should be able to say yes. I can’t think of a better first step than reading this important, eye-opening book.

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Race Against The Machine can be purchased here.

In Canberra - photo by Andrew Sheargold

I’m just back from an amazing tour of Australia, where I talked about Hamlet’s BlackBerry in all kinds of places, including two writers’ festivals and more media outlets than I can count. I’m thrilled the book has touched a chord in Australia, a culture I came to love, and I want to share some of the highlights of my three weeks there.

First, a little background. In 2008, Australian journalist and media scholar Matthew Ricketson wrote a newspaper piece about my essay, “Hamlet’s BlackBerry,” which I wrote as a fellow at Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center. When I expanded the essay into a book and it came out in Australia, Matthew reviewed it in The Australian newspaper. He’s now a professor at the University of Canberra, where he’s assigned the book to his students, and thanks to him, the university underwrote my trip. My wonderful Australian publisher, Scribe, welcomed this news and organized an extensive itinerary for me.

It began in Melbourne, a great city where there seems to be a bookstore on every block. I spoke at the Melbourne Writers Festival, a terrific annual gathering that was my introduction to how much Australia loves books and the people who write them. I did a panel about technology and the future of journalism, and an “in conversation” with Ricketson, which was broadcast by the ABC (Australia’s national television network) and is watchable here. (See this brief “highlight” clip for the best account of the Internet Sabbath I’ve ever given.) In addition to the festival, I got in a few swims at Melbourne’s Edwardian City Baths, a public pool like no other.

Next I went to Canberra, where I spoke twice at the university and also at Australia’s National Library – the latter presentation is now a podcast. Judith Ireland of The Canberra Times wrote a thoughtful piece about my visit, which also ran in the The Sydney Morning Herald alongside a video interview with SMH Tablet Editor Stephen Hutcheon. I had a spirited conversation with ABC Radio’s Louise Maher, a gifted interviewer. And I spent some time at Australia’s stunning Parliament House, where Katharine Murphy of The Age newspaper kindly showed me around the press gallery and introduced me to some of the nation’s leading political journalists.

On to Sydney, where I appeared on several excellent Australian radio shows:  “Mornings with Margaret Throsby” (a one-hour conversation with the legendary host, interspersed with my desert-island classical music choices); ABC Radio Sydney’s “Drive with Richard Glover” (a lively chat with the hugely popular host and all-round great guy); and “PM With Mark Colvin” (a deep media thinker who engaged me in an incisive dialogue about the perils of digital slavery).

I was scheduled to have a brief coffee with Australian MP, technology leader and protean public figure Malcolm Turnbull. The planned fifteen minutes extended to an hour, at which point Turnbull proposed we walk over to Hyde Park and shoot a video for his website. The delightful result is impossible to convey in words – if you watch it, try to imagine a major American political leader (many Australians told me they see Turnbull as their dream Prime Minister) having such a good time in his own YouTube production.

I also gave a talk at Sydney’s Customs House. The room was full, the Q & A was remarkable and many books were sold.

The last stop was Queensland for the marvelous Brisbane Writers Festival, which began with a 3-day retreat at the Sanctuary Cove resort for the writers who had come from abroad. After various adventures including a rain-forest hike, we went into Brisbane for the festival. As in Melbourne, I was blown away by the energy of the city and the generosity of the festival organizers. In addition to speaking on panels with wildly accomplished writers, and happily signing a lot of books, I had a probing radio chat with polymathic Brisbane author and journalist John Birmingham and, patching me in to Adelaide, the ABC’s charming Carole Whitelock.

Like any society, Australia has its problems, but it exudes a vitality that the rest of the world could learn from right now. As I walked around glorious Brisbane on my last day, I wanted to bring some of that spirit home with me. Here’s hoping I get to return one day soon. Thank you, Australia.