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1-Page Summary of Humans Are Underrated

Overview

Computers are getting smarter every day. They’re even learning to detect human emotions and use them to their advantage. It’s not surprising that computers might be able to tell a good story, but what if they could do it better than humans?

Well, these points introduce you to some important advances that computers have made in recent decades. And they are not insignificant. However, you’ll also learn about those human skills that do not compare to or cannot be substituted by those of a computer because humans are indeed underrated.

The Love Machine is about how computers are able to detect your emotions. It also talks about the dangers of spending too much time in front of a screen, and who’s more likely to win the storytelling battle—humans or computers.

Big Idea #1: Don’t compare yourself to a computer, because you will lose.

Wouldn’t it be great to double your brain power every two years?

But not for computers. Computers increase their computing power by 100 percent every two years, so they get better and better over time. For example, Sony’s first transistor radio had five transistors, which would barely fit into a pocket. Now Intel’s latest processor has five billion transistors that can be held in the palm of your hand.

Computers will become more powerful than humans. However, there will come a point when computers can’t get any more powerful because of physical limitations. So, you shouldn’t compare your brain power to that of a computer’s. In fact, nowadays computers are better at some things than humans are; for example, they’re better at detecting emotions than we are. A psychologist named Paul Ekman has figured out the facial expressions people make when they feel certain emotions and he’s written a book about it called The Facial Action Coding System.

Big Idea #2: Technology is changing us more than we think – for the worse.

Have you ever thought about how much your cell phone or tablet affects you? It turns out that the use of phones, computers and other “screens” decreases our social skills. In today’s world it’s easy to spend hours in front of a screen without even noticing. The problem is that the more time we spend in front of screens, the worse our social skills become.

In fact, researchers found that after only five days of being away from screens, sixth graders showed a marked increase in their emotional understanding. They did two more tests to verify the results and each time they were statistically significant.

Social media is often thought of as a way to bring us closer together, but it’s not. It turns out that social media isn’t actually very social at all. Humans originally evolved to be sociable in order to stay connected with others who could provide food and protect them from danger.

But today we can maintain connections from our computers at home, and find food in the fridge. Even though that might seem like a revolutionary development, it’s actually the opposite.