Episode 2107: Matt Beane on How to Save Human Ability in an Age of Intelligent Machines

We are focusing on the impact of AI this week with interviews featuring Shannon Vallor, Matt Beane and Madhumita Murgia. First up Beane, who teaches Technology Management at UC Santa Barbara and has a new book out about how to save human ability in an age of intelligent machines. The book is called The Skill Code, but as Matt Beane explains, it’s really about a human code that will allow us to maintain our value in an age of intelligent machines.

Matt has also been kind enough to provide KEEN ON subscribers with a link to chapter 1 of the book: keenon.theskillcodebook.com

Matt Beane does field research on work involving robots and AI to uncover systematic positive exceptions that we use across the broader world of work. He has published in top management journals such as Administrative Science Quarterly and Harvard Business Review, and spoken on the Ted stage. He also took a two-year hiatus from his doctoral studies to help found and fund Humatics, an MIT-connected, full-stack IoT startup. Beane is an Assistant Professor in the Technology Management Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara and a Digital Fellow with Stanford’s Digital Economy Lab and MIT's Institute for the Digital Economy. He received his PhD from the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

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