Framers: Human Advantage in an Age of Technology and Turmoil

The essential tool that will enable humanity to find the best way through a forest of looming problems is defined in Framers by internationally renowned authors Kenneth Cukier, Viktor Mayer-Schönberger and Francis de Véricourt. From pandemics to populism, AI to ISIS, wealth inequity to climate change, humanity faces unprecedented challenges that threaten our very existence.

To frame is to make a mental model that enables us to see patterns, predict how things will unfold, and make sense of new situations. Frames guide the decisions we make and the results we attain. Science has long focused on traits like memory and reasoning leaving framing all but ignored. But with computers becoming better at some of those cognitive tasks, framing stands out as a critical function—and only humans can do it. This book is the first guide to mastering this innate human ability.

Illustrating their case with compelling examples and the latest research, authors Cukier, Mayer-Schönberger and de Véricourt examine:
• Why advice to “think outside the box” is useless.
• How the Wright brothers, with no formal physics training, enabled humanity’s first flight.
• What enabled the 1976 Israeli commando raid on Entebbe to rescue over 100 hostages.
• How the #MeToo twitter hashtag reframed the perception of sexual assault.
• The disaster of framing Covid-19 as equivalent to seasonal flu, and how modeling it on SARS delivered New Zealand from the pandemic.

Framers shows how framing is not just a way to improve how we make decisions in the era of algorithms but will be a matter of survival for humanity in a time of societal upheaval and machine prosperity.