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

Vivek Wadhwa is a Distinguished Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Engineering and a director of research at Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering. He is a globally syndicated columnist for the Washington Post; author of The Immigrant Exodus, which the Economist named a Book of the Year of 2012; and coauthor of Innovating Women, which documents the struggles and triumphs of women in technology. Wadhwa has held appointments at Stanford Law School, Harvard Law School, UC Berkeley, and Emory University and is an adjunct faculty member at Singularity University.

Alex Salkever is vice president of marketing communications at Mozilla. He was a technology editor of BusinessWeek, a regular science contributor to the Christian Science Monitor, and a contributor to The Immigrant Exodus.