The Efficiency Paradox

Algorithms, multitasking, the sharing economy, life hacks: our culture can't get enough of efficiency. One of the great promises of the Internet and big data revolutions is the idea that we can improve the processes and routines of our work and personal lives to get more done in less time than we ever have before. There is no doubt that we're performing at higher levels and moving at unprecedented speed, but what if we're headed in the wrong direction?

Melding the long-term history of technology with the latest headlines and findings of computer science and social science, The Efficiency Paradox questions our ingrained assumptions about efficiency, persuasively showing how relying on the algorithms of digital platforms can in fact lead to wasted efforts, missed opportunities, and, above all, an inability to break out of established patterns. Edward Tenner offers a smarter way of thinking about efficiency, revealing what we and our institutions, when equipped with an astute combination of artificial intelligence and trained intuition, can learn from the random and unexpected.

• Preface: The Seven Deadly Sins of Efficiency
  Why It Is Still a Work In Progress

1. From Mill to Platform
   How the Nineteenth Century Redefined Efficiency and the Twenty-First Has Transformed It
2. The Failed Promise of the Information explosion
   How the Quest to Measure Elite Science Empowered Populist Culture
3. The Mirage of the Teaching Machine
   Why Learning is Still a Slog After Fifty Years of Moore's Law
4. Moving Targets
   What Geographic Information Can't Do
5. The Managed Body
   Why We Are Still Waiting for Robodoc
6. Inspired Inefficiency
   How to Balance Algorith and Intuition