The Unforeseeable

Everything technology wants to control but can’t.

We like having everything under control, but at the same time, we want life to surprise us. There are algorithms to predict the weather, traffic jams, even love. Algorithms that compose music, that paint pictures like those of Rembrandt. Some create fake news and others predict who we will vote for.

As we continue giving over power to machines, we become more and more worried about all the things that escape their control. Why couldn’t algorithms predict the greatest global pandemic? What aspects of our lives will be invaded by artificial intelligence after coronavirus? How much of what surrounds us will still be unforeseeable?

With humor and a critical spirit, journalist Marta García Aller submerges us in a fascinating search for what it means to be human in an uncertain world dominated by machines. The result is an indispensable book where all sorts of witnesses to the unexpected make their appearance, from mathematicians, epidemiologists, and geneticists to linguists, lawyers, and engineers. There is a three-year-old girl, successful businesspeople, a Tinder fan, neurologists, humorists, and even the occasional robot.

Facts, like oracles, can’t always be trusted, and we often attribute more power to them than they really have, but their successes and failures determine our future.