Martin Ford | |
|---|---|
&sq=Envato&lang=en&file=File:Martin_Ford_Speaking_July_2016.jpg) Ford speaking at the Tata Communications CEO Summit in Ascot, UK in July 2016 | |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | University of Michigan (BSE) UCLA Anderson School of Management (MBA) |
| Known for | Author of New York Times Bestseller, Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future |
| Awards | 2015 Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Futurist and author focusing on artificial intelligence, robotics and the impact on employment, society and the economy |
| Website | mfordfuture |
Martin Ford is an American futurist and author focusing on artificial intelligence and robotics, and the impact of these technologies on the job market, economy and society.
He has written four books on technology. His 2015 book, Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future, was a New York Times bestseller and won the £30,000 Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award.
In Ford's most recent book, Rule of the Robots: How Artificial Intelligence Will Transform Everything (2021), he argues that AI is a systemic, general-purpose technology that will ultimately compare to electricity in terms of its impact on the economy and society. Ford argues that AI will be one of humanity's most consequential technologies, transforming virtually every industry and aspect of civilization, and that it will be critical driver of increased innovation and creativity that will lead to future advances across a broad range of fields in science, engineering and medicine.
Ford's previous book, Architects of Intelligence: The Truth about AI from the People Building It (2018) consists of conversations with the most prominent research scientists and entrepreneurs working in the field of artificial intelligence, including Demis Hassabis, Geoffrey Hinton, Ray Kurzweil, Yann LeCun, Yoshua Bengio, Nick Bostrom, Fei-Fei Li, Rodney Brooks, Andrew Ng, Stuart J. Russell and many others. The conversations recorded in the book delve into the future of artificial intelligence, the path to human-level AI (or artificial general intelligence), and the risks associated with progress in AI.
His first book, The Lights in the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future (2009) also dealt with the effects of automation resulting from advances in artificial intelligence, and the potential for structural unemployment and dramatically increasing inequality.
Ford earned a BSE in computer engineering, magna cum laude, from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and a graduate business degree from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.