486: Efficiency
It used to be that efficiency meant getting something done in the fewest amount of steps. So how did we get to the world we live in now—where efficiency means whatever is cheapest and most convenient, regardless of how many steps it takes? The pursuit of efficiency at all costs has resulted in dramatic wealth concentration, as well as caused an alignment problem between human values and the design of machine learning algorithms. We feature more of Nora's conversations with Sidney Fussell, Rediet Abebe and Brian Christian, which began last week. + And efficiency has been a keyword in capitalism since the industrial revolution. But can efficiency go too far? Roger Martin, celebrated management thinker and former Dean of the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Business, says so, and that a fixation on efficiency has accelerated concentration of wealth and power in an unbalanced way. His new book, When More Is Not Better, offers some solutions.