Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions that follow:
My favorite story in Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee’s fascinating new book, The Second Machine Age, is when the Dutch chess grandmaster Jan Hein Donner was asked how he’d prepare for a chess match against a computer, like IBM’s Deep Blue. Donner replied: "I would bring a hammer."
Donner isn’t alone in fantasizing that he’d like to smash some recent advances in software and automation – think self-driving cars, robotic factories and artificially intelligent reservationists – which are not only replacing blue-collar jobs at a faster rate, but now also white-collar skills, even grandmasters!
Something very, very big happened over the last decade. My own shorthand is that the world went from “connected to hyperconnected” and, as a result, average is over, because employers now have so much easier, cheaper access to above-average software, automation and cheap genius from abroad. Brynjolfsson and McAfee, both at MIT, offer a more detailed explanation: We are at the start of the Second Machine Age.
The First Machine Age, they argue, was the Industrial Revolution that was born along with the steam engine in the late 1700s. This period was "all about power systems to augment human muscle," explained McAfee in an interview,’’ and each successive invention in that age delivered more and more power. But they all required humans to make decisions about them. "Therefore, the inventions of this era actually made human control and labour "more valuable and important."
In the Second Machine Age, though, argues Brynjolfsson, "we are beginning to automate a lot more cognitive tasks, a lot more of the control systems that determine what to use that power for. In many cases today artificially intelligent machines can make better decisions then humans." So humans and software-driven machines may increasingly be substitutes, not complements. What’s making this possible, the authors argue, are three huge technological advances that just reached their tipping points, advances they describe as "exponential, digital and combinatorial."
To illustrate "exponential" they retell the story of the king who was so impressed with the man who invented chess that he offered him any reward. The inventor suggested rice to feed his family. He asked the king to simply place a grain of rice on the first square of a chessboard and then have each subsequent square receive twice as many grains as the previous. The emperor agreed until he realized that 63 instances of doubling yields a fantastically big number, even starting with one grain – like 18 quintillion grains of rice, once you finish the second half of the chessboard.
The authors compare this second half of the chessboard to Moore’s Law about the relentless doubling of digital computing power about every two years. Unlike the steam engine, which was physical and doubled in performance every 70 years, computers "get better, faster than anything else, ever," says Brynjolfsson. Now add the spread of the Internet to both people and things – soon everyone on the planet will have a smart phone and every cash register, airplane engine, student iPad and thermostat will be broadcasting digital data via the Internet.

In the context of the given passage, why does the author say that 'average is over'?

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1.	Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions that follow: My favorite story in Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee’s fascinating new book, The Second Machine Age, is when the Dutch chess grandmaster Jan Hein Donner was asked how he’d prepare for a chess match against a computer, like IBM’s Deep Blue. Donner replied: "I would bring a hammer." Donner isn’t alone in fantasizing that he’d like to smash some recent advances in software and automation – think self-driving cars, robotic factories and artificially intelligent reservationists – which are not only replacing blue-collar jobs at a faster rate, but now also white-collar skills, even grandmasters! Something very, very big happened over the last decade. My own shorthand is that the world went from “connected to hyperconnected” and, as a result, average is over, because employers now have so much easier, cheaper access to above-average software, automation and cheap genius from abroad. Brynjolfsson and McAfee, both at MIT, offer a more detailed explanation: We are at the start of the Second Machine Age. The First Machine Age, they argue, was the Industrial Revolution that was born along with the steam engine in the late 1700s. This period was "all about power systems to augment human muscle," explained McAfee in an interview,’’ and each successive invention in that age delivered more and more power. But they all required humans to make decisions about them. "Therefore, the inventions of this era actually made human control and labour "more valuable and important." In the Second Machine Age, though, argues Brynjolfsson, "we are beginning to automate a lot more cognitive tasks, a lot more of the control systems that determine what to use that power for. In many cases today artificially intelligent machines can make better decisions then humans." So humans and software-driven machines may increasingly be substitutes, not complements. What’s making this possible, the authors argue, are three huge technological advances that just reached their tipping points, advances they describe as "exponential, digital and combinatorial." To illustrate "exponential" they retell the story of the king who was so impressed with the man who invented chess that he offered him any reward. The inventor suggested rice to feed his family. He asked the king to simply place a grain of rice on the first square of a chessboard and then have each subsequent square receive twice as many grains as the previous. The emperor agreed until he realized that 63 instances of doubling yields a fantastically big number, even starting with one grain – like 18 quintillion grains of rice, once you finish the second half of the chessboard. The authors compare this second half of the chessboard to Moore’s Law about the relentless doubling of digital computing power about every two years. Unlike the steam engine, which was physical and doubled in performance every 70 years, computers "get better, faster than anything else, ever," says Brynjolfsson. Now add the spread of the Internet to both people and things – soon everyone on the planet will have a smart phone and every cash register, airplane engine, student iPad and thermostat will be broadcasting digital data via the Internet. In the context of the given passage, why does the author say that 'average is over'?
Answer» Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions that follow: My favorite story in Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee’s fascinating new book, The Second Machine Age, is when the Dutch chess grandmaster Jan Hein Donner was asked how he’d prepare for a chess match against a computer, like IBM’s Deep Blue. Donner replied: "I would bring a hammer." Donner isn’t alone in fantasizing that he’d like to smash some recent advances in software and automation – think self-driving cars, robotic factories and artificially intelligent reservationists – which are not only replacing blue-collar jobs at a faster rate, but now also white-collar skills, even grandmasters! Something very, very big happened over the last decade. My own shorthand is that the world went from “connected to hyperconnected” and, as a result, average is over, because employers now have so much easier, cheaper access to above-average software, automation and cheap genius from abroad. Brynjolfsson and McAfee, both at MIT, offer a more detailed explanation: We are at the start of the Second Machine Age. The First Machine Age, they argue, was the Industrial Revolution that was born along with the steam engine in the late 1700s. This period was "all about power systems to augment human muscle," explained McAfee in an interview,’’ and each successive invention in that age delivered more and more power. But they all required humans to make decisions about them. "Therefore, the inventions of this era actually made human control and labour "more valuable and important." In the Second Machine Age, though, argues Brynjolfsson, "we are beginning to automate a lot more cognitive tasks, a lot more of the control systems that determine what to use that power for. In many cases today artificially intelligent machines can make better decisions then humans." So humans and software-driven machines may increasingly be substitutes, not complements. What’s making this possible, the authors argue, are three huge technological advances that just reached their tipping points, advances they describe as "exponential, digital and combinatorial." To illustrate "exponential" they retell the story of the king who was so impressed with the man who invented chess that he offered him any reward. The inventor suggested rice to feed his family. He asked the king to simply place a grain of rice on the first square of a chessboard and then have each subsequent square receive twice as many grains as the previous. The emperor agreed until he realized that 63 instances of doubling yields a fantastically big number, even starting with one grain – like 18 quintillion grains of rice, once you finish the second half of the chessboard. The authors compare this second half of the chessboard to Moore’s Law about the relentless doubling of digital computing power about every two years. Unlike the steam engine, which was physical and doubled in performance every 70 years, computers "get better, faster than anything else, ever," says Brynjolfsson. Now add the spread of the Internet to both people and things – soon everyone on the planet will have a smart phone and every cash register, airplane engine, student iPad and thermostat will be broadcasting digital data via the Internet. In the context of the given passage, why does the author say that 'average is over'?