Kelly, Kevin (2016) The Inevitable: Understanding  The Twelve Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future, New York: Penguin Random House, 312 pages.

Kelly is a futurist and attempts to describe the structure (networks and related) and functions (becoming,  cognifying, flowing, screening, accessing, sharing, filtering, remixing, interacting, tracking, questioning,  and beginning.) To define each function is not necessary, the reviewer will use more common terminology.

This is not the usual futurist book. The reviewer was a futurist  for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and a Fellow in a Washington D.C. think tank. By defining his terms, he gives examples that may enlighten the reader.

However, he underlines how difficult  to predict the future and then does the opposite. As an example, robots will  take us over. I can recall a number of statements in other books which Artificial Intelligence (Robots) do take control of society. Why? A human wants to control social forces and territory and makes a very mean and strong machine that in conquering the area it then turns on the owner and kills them. The artificial intelligence then creates powerful but submissives to the Alpha Robot. Homo Sapiens are slaughtered.

The value of this book is that certain technologies serendipitously  emerge and change in a number of ways by the functions described above. The Inevitable make that book exciting with such a title. However, he is quick to moderate ” Inevitable ” into a soft determinism. 

Human misery, war, prostitution, poverty, and the elements of violent weather are among the  variableness  that are lightly discussed. At times the book is a creature of discomfort. As talented as the author appears to be, he tries to stay away from cartoon futures where we all live happily because of technology. On the other hand, examples are given that mute the human condition. In many ways this is a theory book about a future. We really are not sure what that future may be, but there is a pleasant  certainty to his writing.

This is a book for those who are knowledgeable and who know a bit more about futurist jargon than the average reader.  It is a worthwhile book  for the target reader.

Prof. Joel  Snell

Kirkwood College

Cedar Rapids, Iowa

joelsnell@hotmail.com