Impact of science and technology on society Books

Book Synopsis“Magisterial…Draws an elegant and illuminating parallel between the late-19th-century electrification of America and today’s computing world.” —SalonTrade Review"Future Shock for the Web-apps era…Compulsively readable—for nontechies, too—as it compellingly weaves together news stories, anecdotes, and data." -- Fast Company"The best read so far about the significance of the shift to cloud computing." -- Financial Times"Mr. Carr’s provocations are destined to influence CEOs and the boards and investors that support them as companies grapple with the constant change of the digital age." -- Wall Street Journal"Exceedingly good." -- TechWorld"The Big Switch is thought-provoking and an enjoyable read, and the history of American electricity that makes up the first half of the book is riveting stuff." -- New York Post"Carr stimulates, provokes and entertains superbly." -- Information Age

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Book SynopsisPower Without Responsibility attacks the conventional history of the press as a story of progress; offers a critical defence and history of public service broadcasting; provides a myth-busting account of the internet; and surveys key debates about the role and politics of the media. Trade Review‘This is the book that changed everything in media studies.’Sally Young, University of Melbourne‘This is a brilliant seminal history of broadcasting, press and the new media, vividly and insightfully told, with sharp vignettes of political interference and policy challenges. It is a powerful reminder of why public service broadcasting and truthful communication is vital to our democracy.’Baroness Helena Kennedy, President of Mansfield College, Oxford ‘This skillfully revised and updated edition of Curran and Seaton’s magnificent history is just as fresh and relevant now as it has been over the decades.’ David Hesmondhalgh, Leeds University‘The pleasure of a classic that just keeps redelivering. Power Without Responsibility proves itself yet again as the go-to source for analysis of the British media at their best and worst.’Barbie Zelizer, Annenberg School of Communication, University of Pennsylvania‘If I was able to suggest one book about the history of journalism – whether to a student, a journalist or someone who simply wanted to know more about the role of the news media in our democracy – it would be Power Without Responsibility. Much of our understanding of the past is altered by the present, so we are all indebted to James Curran and Jean Seaton for this excellent new edition. There has been no shortage of controversies and debates about the news media in recent years: this book guides us through them with a sharp eye, a clear head, and the wisdom that comes from a formidable sense of history. Packed with eloquently delivered information, it is analytical but jargon-free, critical without ever being doctrinaire.’Justin Lewis, Cardiff UniversityTable of ContentsPart IPress historyJames Curran Press history as political mythology The struggle for a free press Janus face of reform Industrialization of the press Era of the press barons Press under public regulation Post-war press: fable of progress Press and the remaking of Britain Rise of the neo-liberal Establishment Moral decline of the press Part II Broadcasting history Jean Seaton Reith and the denial of politics Broadcasting and the Blitz Public service commerce: ITV, new audiences and new revenue Foreign affairs: the BBC, the world and the government Class, taste and profit Managers, regulators and broadcasters Public service under attack Broadcasting roller-coaster Part III Rise of new media New media in Britain – James Curran History of the internet – James Curran Sociology of the internet – James Curran Social media: making new societies or polarization – Jean Seaton Part IV Theories of the media Jean Seaton Metabolising Britishness Global understanding Broadcasting and the theory of public service Part V Politics of the media Industrial folklore and press reform – James Curran Contradictions in media policy – James Curran and Jean Seaton Media reform: democratic choices – James Curran BibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Here, the draw is not so much the text of Bush’s report itself, but rather an excellent critical introduction by Rush Holt. . . . Holt’s introduction takes seriously the idea that the United States is a democracy, and that scientists have a specific role to play in that democracy, which is not the same thing as saying that scientists should control science policy."---Audra Wolfe, Never Just Science"I just read the new Princeton University Press edition of Vannevar Bush’s Science, The Endless Frontier, with an interesting introductory essay by Rush Holt. I don’t think I’d ever read the whole of the famous Bush document before, and it was interesting to see how he made the pitch . . . . Both the Bush and the Holt essays are well worth a read."---Diane Coyle, Enlightened Economist

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Book SynopsisBuilding on his earlier book We Have Never Been Modern, Bruno Latour develops his argument about the Modern fetishization of facts, or the creation of factishes.Trade Review“Latour is the best scholar in the field with a huge range and fine grasp ofthe literature. . . . Latour can also be a sparkling writer, exploiting his licence as a foreigner to write English with flair and adventure. . . . I admire [Chapter 3] not only because of its brilliance and fresh insights but also because of the courage it must have taken to write it.” - Harry Collins, Metascience“. . . [B]oth thought provoking and potentially transformative. Latour lulls the reader into accompanying him on a quest to rethink objects as acting independently of our belief in them, and through this same belief. He also exemplifies this wonderful goal, proper to anthropology at its best: to displace common sense understanding and its objects, not deconstruct them.” - Julie Kleinman, Anthropological Quarterly“Latour came into view in the 1980s as an uncommonly engaging as well as radical practitioner of the new discipline of science studies.... witty, imaginative, literate and unrelentingly ironic. For some, all this spells something manifestly frivolous and naturally suspect. Others, including many not ordinarily drawn to treatises on science and technology, are attracted by Latour’s style into engaging with ideas they find illuminating and a mode of analysis they can use.” - Barbara Herrnstein Smith, London Review of Books"Eloquent, amusing and fabulously well-informed, Bruno Latour is one of the superstars of French intellectual life…. His recent book On the Modern Cult of the Factish Gods shows that Latour remains a great star." - Jonathan Rée, New Humanist“Bruno Latour’s is a joyous and generous science, not a warmongering, invidious one. His unique intellectual trajectory beautifully replicates those strange objects he was the first to fully discern. For his work is eminently suitable to an actor-network treatment; it thrives on associations; it deals in mediations; it articulates heterogeneous modes of existence; it modulates its own regime of enunciation as the truth it describes changes its own conditions of production. What started as a ‘social description of scientific practice’ morphed into a radical redescription of the social at least as much as of science itself, and it bloomed as a daring project of a general anthropology of truth, within which facts and fetishes, divine forces and material forms, art and science, religion and law, all are made to inhabit a virtual plane of coexistence, which we are challengingly invited to bring into actuality as our common world.”—Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Museu Nacional (Rio de Janeiro)“What immense spiritual and intellectual relaxation! With what vivacity and cunning Bruno Latour gets us out of the cage holding us hostage to the mumbo-jumbo of Subjects and Objects all these long years of Western Civ. Out-fetishizing these fetishes, nudging us toward the mastery of non-mastery, he invites us thereby to the sort of thinking needed to remake a failing world.”—Michael Taussig, Columbia University“[B]oth thought provoking and potentially transformative. Latour lulls the reader into accompanying him on a quest to rethink objects as acting independently of our belief in them, and through this same belief. He also exemplifies this wonderful goal, proper to anthropology at its best: to displace common sense understanding and its objects, not deconstruct them.” -- Julie Kleinman * Anthropological Quarterly *“Latour came into view in the 1980s as an uncommonly engaging as well as radical practitioner of the new discipline of science studies.... witty, imaginative, literate and unrelentingly ironic. For some, all this spells something manifestly frivolous and naturally suspect. Others, including many not ordinarily drawn to treatises on science and technology, are attracted by Latour’s style into engaging with ideas they find illuminating and a mode of analysis they can use.” -- Barbara Herrnstein Smith * London Review of Books *“Latour is the best scholar in the field with a huge range and fine grasp ofthe literature. . . . Latour can also be a sparkling writer, exploiting his licence as a foreigner to write English with flair and adventure. . . . I admire [Chapter 3] not only because of its brilliance and fresh insights but also because of the courage it must have taken to write it.” -- Harry Collins * Metascience *"Eloquent, amusing and fabulously well-informed, Bruno Latour is one of the superstars of French intellectual life…. His recent book On the Modern Cult of the Factish Gods shows that Latour remains a great star." -- Jonathan Rée * New Humanist *Table of ContentsPreface vii 1. On the Cult of the Factish Gods 1 2. What is Iconoclash? Or Is There a World Beyond the Image Wars? 67 3. "Thou Shalt Not Freeze Frame," Or How Not to Misunderstand the Science and Religion Debate 99 Notes 125 Index 151

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Book SynopsisSketches the history of the belief that human beings are essentially their brains, and documents and critically discusses its contemporary forms across a range of contexts, including mental health, the human sciences, and literature and film.Trade Review"Being Brains offers a terrifically thoughtful and thorough examination of the 'neuro-' turn in various disciplines. On the basis of solid research and subtle analysis, Vidal and Ortega give readers conceptual and critical tools to make sense of widespread claims that studying the 'neural correlates' of various activities-art and religion, for instance- will transform or even replace other ways of making sense of what humans do. The book will be a major touchstone in cross-disciplinary discussions about the implications of our contemporary fascination with brains." -- -John Tresch University of PennsylvaniaTable of ContentsTo Begin With | 1 1. Genealogy of the Cerebral Subject | 13 2. Disciplines of the Neuro | 58 3. Cerebralizing Distress | 130 4. Brains on Screen and Paper | 189 “Up for Grabs” | 227 Acknowledgments | 233 Notes | 235 Bibliography | 243 Index | 305

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Book SynopsisPeter Russell argues that global communications and the internet are helping to link the minds of humanity together to form a single, global brain and consciousness with remarkable potential.Trade Review'Selling more than 100,000 copies and translated into ten languages, The Global Brain has won acclaim from forward thinkers worldwide'.-- Living Lightly Magazine, Winter 2007'It is important that we gain a stronger sense of being able to choose our future rather than stumble into it. We have been set an evolutionary exam and have here a textbook which we as students can study.'-- David Lorimer, Scientific and Medical Network Review, Winter 2007'One of those rare books that send a tingle down the spine.'-- New Internationalist'It ranks with the best of Fritjof Capra and Lyall Watson as part of a trend in communicating ideas about mankind’s inner self and our relation to the physical world; it is very well written, and it deserves to be a best seller.'-- New Scientist'A clear and exciting survey of some of the most important ideas in the world at the moment.'-- Colin Wilson'I picked up this book expecting to scoff all the way to the last page and ended up with a tremendous sense of optimism for the human race. The book as a whole has had a positive effect on my view of the future of mankind. I hope it does the same for all other readers.'-- Catholic Herald"To a world badly in need if new visions and realistic optimism, Peter Russell offers a bold hypothesis. His thesis is bound to be the subject of much discussion in the trying years ahead.'-- Willis Harman, Institute of Noetic Sciences'I am thrilled at the attempt to think on this holistic scale. Peter Russell brings together scientific knowledge and the holistic vision of the spiritual nature of the Universe and Man.'-- Sir George Trevelyan'A fascinating vision of how the information revolution is shifting consciousness. A much needed, optimistic perspective on humanity's future.'-- Ted Turner'A fascinating read.'-- Yoga Scotland Magazine, January 2008

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Book SynopsisTikTok Cultures in the United States examines the role of TikTok in US popular culture, paying close attention to the appâs growing body of subcultures.Featuring an array of scholars from varied disciplines and backgrounds, this book uses TikTok (sub)cultures as a point of departure from which to explore TikTokâs role in US popular culture today. Engaging with the extensive and growing scholarship on TikTok from international scholars, chapters in this book create frameworks and blueprints from which to analyze TikTok within a distinctly US context, examining topics such as gender and sexuality, feminism, race and ethnicity and wellness.Shaping TikTok as an interdisciplinary field in and of itself, this insightful and timely volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of new and digital media, social media, popular culture, communication studies, sociology of media, dance, gender studies, and performance studies.Trade ReviewAs platforms like TikTok emerge, there is much to learn about the many people and ideas it gives voice to, as well as silences and suppresses. Boffone has given us a must-read collection for those working to make the pressing issues of internet culture and community legible. This work further expands the urgent need for a disciplinary field of internet studies as digital media platforms are remaking our worlds.Safiya Umoja Noble, author of Algorithms of OppressionTable of ContentsIntroduction: The Rise of TikTok in US Culture; Section I: Race and Ethnicity on TikTok; 1. The D’Amelio Effect: TikTok, Charli D’Amelio, and the Construction of Whiteness; 2. Digital Blackface and the Troubling Intimacies of TikTok Dance Challenges; 3. TikTok For Us By Us: Black Girlhood, Joy, and Self Care; 4. #JewishTikTok: The JewToks’ Fight Against Antisemitism; Section II: Gender and Sexuality on TikTok; 5. Watching TikTok, Feeling Feminism: Intergenerational Flows of Feminist Knowledge; 6. "Do you want to form an alliance with me?": Glimpses of Utopia in the Works of Queer Women and Non-Binary Creators on TikTok; 7. Trans TikTok: Sharing Information and Forming Community; Section III: TikTok (Sub)Cultures; 8. Hocus-Pocus: WitchTok Education for Baby Witches; 9. Wellness TikTok: Morning Routines, Eating Well, and Getting Ready to be "That Girl"; 10. Hype it Up: US Latinx Theater on TikTok; Afterword TikTok Industrial Complex; or Twenty-first Century Transculturative Creative Critical Collaboratory?

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Book SynopsisEvery day, new warnings emerge about artificial intelligence rebelling against us. All the while, a more immediate dilemma flies under the radar. Have forces been unleashed that are thrusting humanity down an ill-advised path, one that''s increasingly making us behave like simple machines? In this wide-reaching, interdisciplinary book, Brett Frischmann and Evan Selinger examine what''s happening to our lives as society embraces big data, predictive analytics, and smart environments. They explain how the goal of designing programmable worlds goes hand in hand with engineering predictable and programmable people. Detailing new frameworks, provocative case studies, and mind-blowing thought experiments, Frischmann and Selinger reveal hidden connections between fitness trackers, electronic contracts, social media platforms, robotic companions, fake news, autonomous cars, and more. This powerful analysis should be read by anyone interested in understanding exactly how technology threatens thTrade Review'Frischmann and Selinger provide a thoroughgoing and balanced examination of the tradeoffs inherent in offloading tasks and decisions to computers. By illuminating these often intricate and hidden tradeoffs, and providing a practical framework for assessing and negotiating them, the authors give us the power to make wiser choices.' Nicolas Carr, author of The Glass Cage: How Our Computers Are Changing Us, from the Foreword'Re-Engineering Humanity brings a pragmatic if somewhat dystopic perspective to the technological phenomena of our age. Humans are learning machines and we learn from our experiences. This book made me ask myself whether the experiences we are providing to our societies are in fact beneficial in the long run.' Vint Cerf, Co-Inventor of the Internet'Frischmann and Selinger deftly and convincingly show why we should be less scared of robots than of becoming more robotic, ourselves. This book will convince you why it's so important we embed technologies with human values before they embed us with their own.' Douglas Rushkoff, author of Present Shock, Program or Be Programmed, and Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus'Brett Frischmann and Evan Selinger cogently argue that our Fitbit, Echo, Android, and game console, our Facebook pages, Google searches, Amazon and Netflix profiles, give far less than they take. With tiny, almost imperceptible steps, we have entered into a bargain with socio-technical engineers of the digital age that literally drains our humanity and is imperiling freedom, autonomy, and other precious values fundamental to meaningful human existence. Beyond admittedly important questions demanding balanced policy answers, this disquieting book is about the big picture. All of us should read it and decide, deliberately, if this is a future we want for ourselves and our children.' Helen Nissenbaum, Cornell Tech, and author of Privacy in Context: Technology, Policy, and the Integrity of Social Life'Everybody is suddenly worried about technology. Will social media be the end of democracy? Is automation going to eliminate jobs? Will artificial intelligence make people obsolete? Brett Frischmann and Evan Selinger boldly propose that the problem isn't the rise of 'smart' machines but the dumbing down of humanity. This refreshingly philosophical book asks what's lost when we outsource our decision-making to algorithmic systems we don't own and barely understand. Better yet, it proposes conceptual and practical ways to reclaim our autonomy and dignity in the face of new forms of computational control.' Astra Taylor, author of The People's Platform: Taking Back Power and Control in the Digital Age'A magnificent achievement. Writing in the tradition of Neil Postman, Jacque Ellul and Marshall McLuhan, this book is the decade's deepest and most powerful portrayal of the challenges to freedom created by our full embrace of comprehensive techno-social engineering. A rewarding and stimulating book that merits repeated readings and may also cause you to reconsider how you live life.' Tim Wu, Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law, Columbia Law School, and author of The Attention Merchants'The book Re-Engineering Humanity by Brett Frischmann and Evan Selinger will help us all gain better understanding of techno-social engineering and help us think through what we want and don't want in our future. This is an incredible work that should be studied by every thinking human. It captures details on threats, documenting the many warnings we are already seeing.' Bob Gourley, CTO Vision (www.ctovision.com)'Together, they explore how ordinary activities like clicking on an app's legal terms are made so simple that it 'trains' us to not read the contents. Over time, the authors fear that humans will lose their capacity for judgment, discrimination and self-sufficiency. Or, as Douglas Rushkoff, a tech writer, put it: 'We should be less scared of robots than of becoming more robotic ourselves'.' The Economist Online (www.economist.com)'… a recent startling and thoughtful book … [Re-Engineering Humanity] is an exploration of how everyday practices – such as clicking to accept an app's legal terms – are made so simple that we are effectively 'trained' to not read the contents. Unless things change, the dominance of digital technology means that, over time, humans will lose their capacity for judgment, discrimination and self-sufficiency.' John Naughton, The Guardian'In Re-engineering Humanity, Brett Frischmann and Evan Selinger have dug deeply into what's going on behind the 'cheap bliss' in our fully connected world.' Doc Searles, Linux Journal'In our own time, as Frischmann and Selinger observe, the 'smart' device and 'internet of things' developers who offer us efficiency then pull a bait-and-switch: instead of sending us on our way to use our newly-free time on art, beauty, and education, they channel us into putting our time into mumblety-Facebook and its ilk, or what the authors aptly call 'cheap bliss'.' Lara Freidenfelds, Nursing Clio (www.nursingclio.org)'Brett Frischmann and Evan Selinger have written Re-Engineering Humanity as a sustained and multifaceted critique of how contemporary trends in internet technology are slowly but surely shrinking the territory of human autonomy. Their work is a warning, as well as a description, of how internet technologies that ostensibly make our lives easier do so by taking control of our lives away from our self-conscious decision-making.' Adam Riggio, Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective (www.social-epistemology.com)'Professors Frischmann and Selinger shine a bright light on the current path of our surveillance capitalist society, using a combination of detailed analysis, contemporary examples, and thought experiments. The authors explain that as we (and information about us) increasingly become the product, we are also becoming simple machines programmed by our technology to respond in certain ways. As Frischmann and Selinger suggest, techno-social engineering is a powerful force that requires us to responsibly evaluate its use. And 'if we don't accept that responsibility, we risk becoming means to others' ends'.' Jeramie D. Scott, Epic AlertTable of ContentsForeword Nicholas Carr; Introduction; Part I: 1. Engineering humans; 2. Cogs in the machine of our own lives; 3. Techno-social engineering creep and the slippery-sloped path; Part II: 4. Tools for engineering humans; 5. Engineering humans with contracts; 6. On extending minds and mind control; 7. The path to smart techno-social environments; 8. Techno-social engineering of humans through smart environments; 9. #RelationshipOptimization; Part III: 10. Turing tests and the line between humans and machines; 11. Can humans be engineered to be incapable of thinking?; 12. Engineered determinism and free will; 13. To what end?; Part IV: 14. Conclusion: reimagining and building alternative futures.

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Book SynopsisDrawing on a rich array of twenty-first-century speculative fiction, this book demonstrates how the commodification of life through biotechnology has far-reaching implications for how we think of personhood, agency, and value. Sherryl Vint argues that neoliberalism is reinventing life under biocapital. She offers new biopolitical figurations that can help theoretically grasp and politically respond to a distinctive twenty-first-century biopolitics. This book theorizes how biotechnology intervenes in the very processes of biological function, reshaping life itself to serve economic ends. Linking fictional texts with material examples, Biopolitical Futures in Twenty-First-Century Speculative Fiction shows how these practices are linked to new modes of exploitative economic relations that cannot be redressed by human rights. It concludes with a posthumanist reframing of the value of life that grounds itself elsewhere than in capitalist logics, a vision that, in a Covid age, might become fundamental to a new politics of ecological relations.Trade Review'… rich and compelling … the larger political and ethical ramifications of Vint's project in Biopolitical Futures could not be more urgent or clear.' Hugh C. O'Connell, Science Fiction StudiesTable of ContentsIntroduction: neoliberalism and the reinvention of life; 1. Suspending death, reinventing life: the immortal vessel; 2. The new flesh: vital machines and reimagining the human; 3. Capital reproduction: maternity and productivity; 4. Surplus value: transplantation and fungible life; 5. Life industries: vitality as commodity; 6. Living to work: biocapital, synthetic biology, and the precaritization of labor; 7. Life optimized: pharmaceutical health and disposable bodies; 8. Surplus vitality and posthuman possibilities; Conclusion: capitalism, biopolitics, and a new body politic.

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Book SynopsisAn approachable introduction to the philosophical study of ethical dilemmas in technology In the Technology Age, innovations in medical, communications, and weapons technologies have given rise to many new ethical questions: Are technologies always value-neutral tools? Are human values and human prejudices sometimes embedded in technologies? Should we merge with the technologies we use? Is it ethical to use autonomous weapons systems in warfare? What should a self-driving car do if it detects an unavoidable crash? Can robots have morally relevant properties? This is Technology Ethics: An Introduction provides an accessible overview of the sub-field of philosophy that focuses on the ethical implications of new technologies. Requiring no previous background in the subject, this reader-friendly volume explores ethical questions concerning artificial intelligence, robots, self-driving cars, brain implants, social media and communication technologies, and more. ThrouTrade Review"Overall, This is Technology Ethics: An Introduction is well written, philosophically engaging, thought provoking, and timely—considering our society is in the midst of working out the ethical implications surrounding emerging technologies. This book will be of benefit to instructors teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in technology ethics or introductory ethics courses that want to incorporate technology ethics into the curriculum. Reading the entire book has academic merit and is a fascinating read, but you could also choose to only read certain chapters. This is a testament to the well-organized structure of the book. Finally, footnotes in philosophy books tend to be exclusively concerned with written material. Nyholm extends the content of his foot-notes by pointing readers to podcasts and videos that are sure to be useful for students, instructors, and those that want to take a deep dive into the fascinating world of technology ethics." (AI and Ethics, 2023).“This Is Technology Ethics is an engaging and enjoyable introduction for anyone who is interested in the ethical implications of advancing technologies. It brings a helpful level of structure to a field of philosophy that is still in the process of being developed. Nyholm's clear language and use of real and fictional examples make the book accessible to a wide audience, as well as a valuable addition to Wiley's ‘This Is Philosophy’ series.” (Journal of Applied Philosophy, 2023).Table of ContentsPreface xiii Acknowledgments xvii 1 What is Technology (From an Ethical Point of View)? 1 1.1 A Hut in the Black Forest 1 1.2 The Question Concerning Technology: The Instrumental Theory of Technology from Martin Heidegger to Joanna Bryson 3 1.3 “Post- Phenomenology” and the Mediation Theory of Technology 7 1.4 Technologies Conceived of as Being More Than Mere Means or Instruments 11 1.5 Technologies Regarded as Moral Agents 13 1.6 Technologies Regarded as Moral Patients 16 1.7 Some of the Key Types of Technologies That Will Be Discussed at Greater Length in Later Chapters of the Book 19 Annotated Bibliography 24 2 What is Ethics? (and, in Particular, What is Technology Ethics)? 25 2.1 Two Campaigns 25 2.2 The Ethics of Virtue and Human Flourishing in Ancient Greece 28 2.3 Ancient Chinese Confucianism and Traditional Southern African Ubuntu Ethics 32 2.4 Kantian Ethics 36 2.5 Utilitarianism and Consequentialist Ethical Theories 39 2.6 If Ethics More Generally Can Be All the Things Discussed in the Previous Sections, then What Does this Mean for Technology Ethics in Particular? 44 2.7 How Technology Ethics Can Challenge and Create a Need for Extensions of More General Ethical Theory 46 Annotated Bibliography 49 3 Methods of Technology Ethics: The Ethics of Self- Driving Cars as a Case Study 51 3.1 Methodologies of Ethics? 51 3.2 The Ethics of Self- Driving Cars 53 3.3 Ethics by Committee 56 3.4 Ethics by Analogy: The Trolley Problem Comparison 58 3.5 Empirical Ethics 61 3.6 Applying Traditional Ethical Theories 65 3.7 Which Method(s) Should We Use in Technology Ethics? Only One or Many? 70 Annotated Bibliography 74 4 Artificial Intelligence, Value Alignment, and the Control Problem 76 4.1 Averting a Nuclear War 76 4.2 What Is Artificial Intelligence and What Is the Value Alignment Problem? 79 4.3 The Good and the Bad, and Instrumental and Non- Instrumental Values and Principles 83 4.4 Instrumentally Positive Value- Alignment of Technologies 86 4.5 Instrumentally Negative Misalignment of Technologies 87 4.6 Positive Non- Instrumental Value Alignment of Technologies 90 4.7 Negative Non- Instrumental Value Misalignment of Technologies 94 4.8 The Control Problem 96 4.9 Control as a Value: Instrumental or Non- Instrumental? And Are There Some Technologies It Might Be Wrong to Try to Control? 99 Annotated Bibliography 102 5 Behavior Change Technologies, Gamification, Personal Autonomy, and the Value of Control 104 5.1 A Better You? 104 5.2 Behavior Change Technologies and Gamification 107 5.3 Control: Three Basic Observations 110 5.4 Key Dimensions of Control Discussed in Different Areas of Philosophy 112 5.5 Behavior Change Technologies and the “Subjects” and “Objects” of Control 116 5.6 The Value and Ethical Importance of Control 120 5.7 Concluding This Chapter 123 Annotated Bibliography 125 6 Responsibility and Technology: Mind the Gap(s)? 127 6.1 Two Events 127 6.2 What Is Responsibility? Different Ways in Which People Can Be Held Responsible and Different Things for Which People Can Be Held Responsible 130 6.3 Responsibility Gaps: General Background 134 6.4 Responsibility Gaps Created by Technologies 138 6.5 Filling Responsibility Gaps by Having People Voluntarily Take Responsibility 142 6.6 Should We Perhaps Welcome Responsibility Gaps? 145 6.7 Responsible Machines? 148 6.8 Human–Machine Teams and Responsibility 153 6.9 Concluding This Chapter 155 Annotated Bibliography 156 7 Can a Machine be a Moral Agent? Should any Machines be Moral Agents? 158 7.1 Machine Ethics 158 7.2 Arguments in Favor of Machine Ethics and Types of Artificial Moral Agents 160 7.3 Objections to the Machine Ethics Project 163 7.3.1 First Objection: Morality Cannot Be Fully Codified 164 7.3.2 Second Objection: It Is Unethical to Create Machines that We Allow to Make Life- and- Death Decisions About Human Beings 165 7.3.3 Third Objection: Moral Agents Need to Have Moral Emotions and Machines Do Not/Cannot Have Emotions 167 7.3.4 Fourth Objection: Machines Are Not Able to Act for Reasons 169 7.3.5 Brief Reminder of the Objections to Machine Ethics Considered Above 171 7.4 Possible Ways of Responding to the Critiques of the Machine Ethics Project 172 7.4.1 First Response: Bottom- Up Learning Rather Than Top- Down Rule- Following 173 7.4.2 Second Response: Resisting the Idea That Machines/Technologies Should Ever Be Full Moral Agents 175 7.4.3 Third Response: Switching to Thinking in Terms of Human–Machine Teams Rather Than in Terms of Independent Artificial Moral Agents 176 7.5 Concluding This Chapter 179 Annotated Bibliography 180 8 Can Robots be Moral Patients, with Moral Status? 182 8.1 The Tesla Bot and Erica the Robot 182 8.2 What Is a Humanoid Robot? And Why Would Anybody Want to Create a Humanoid Robot? 186 8.3 Can People Act Rightly or Wrongly Toward Robots? 190 8.4 Can Robots Have Morally Relevant Properties or Abilities? 193 8.5 Can Robots Imitate or Simulate Morally Relevant Properties or Abilities? 197 8.6 Can Robots Represent or Symbolize Morally Relevant Properties or Abilities? 200 8.7 Should We Be Discussing— Or Perhaps Better Be Avoiding— the Question of Whether Robots Can Be Moral Patients, with Moral Status? 205 Annotated Bibliography 210 9 Technological Friends, Lovers, and Colleagues 213 9.1 Replikas, Chuck and Harmony, and Boomer 213 9.2 Ethical Issues That Arise in This Context Independently of Whether Technologies Can Be Our Friends, Lovers, or Colleagues 216 9.3 Technological Friends 219 9.4 Technological Lovers and Romantic Partners 222 9.5 Robotic Colleagues 227 9.6 Are These All- or- Nothing Matters? Respect for Different Points of View 232 9.7 The Technological Future of Relationships 234 Annotated Bibliography 238 10 Merging with the Machine: The Future of Human–Technology Relations 240 10.1 The Experience Machine 240 10.2 Different Ways of Merging with— Or Merging with the Help of— Technology 244 10.3 Transhumanism, Posthumanism, and Whether We Should Become— Or Perhaps Already Are— Cyborgs 248 10.4 Some Critical Reflections on the Proposals to Merge with Technologies and the Arguments and Outlooks Used in Favor of Such Proposals 251 10.5 Concluding Reflections: Revisiting the Hut in the Black Forest 256 Annotated Bibliography 263 Index 265

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Book SynopsisShould transhuman and posthuman persons ever be brought into existence? And if so, could they be generated in a good and loving way? This study explores how society may respond to the actual generation of new kinds of persons from ethical, philosophical, and theological perspectives. Contributors to this volume address a number of essential questions, including the ethical ramifications of generating new life, the relationships that generators may have with their creations, and how these creations may consider their generation. This collection''s interdisciplinary approach traverses the philosophical writings of Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, alongside theological considerations from Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions. It invites academics, faith leaders, policy makers, and stakeholders to think through the ethical gamut of generating posthuman and transhuman persons.Table of ContentsA note on the text List of contributors Faith perspectives Introduction: Calum MacKellar (Scottish Council on Human Bioethics, UK) and Trevor Stammers Part I Who is a transhuman and posthuman person? 1. The concept of a ‘person’ and its history, Michael Fuchs (Catholic University of Linz, Austria) 2. One of us: Humans, transhumans and posthumans, Richard Playford (St Mary's University, UK) 3. Remaining human: The philosophy of Charles Taylor aimed at the ethics of generating trans- and posthuman persons, Gregory Parker Jr. (University of Edinburgh, UK) 4. Being somebody: Towards a categorical imperative for the age of transhumanism, Christian Hölzchen Part II How can transhuman and posthuman persons be generated? 5. On the scientific plausibility of transhumanism, Chris Willmott (University of Leicester, UK) Part III Philosophical aspects in generating transhuman and posthuman persons 6. Domination and vulnerability: Herman Bavinck and posthumanism in the shadow of Friedrich Nietzsche, James Eglinton (University of Edinburgh, UK) 7. The question of technology and relationships: How might Martin Heidegger’s idea of enframing shape how posthuman persons and their generators relate to one another? Matthew James (St Mary's University, UK) 8. Deliver us from (artificial) evil: Are the generators of Artificial Intelligences morally accountable for the actions of those they generate? Trevor Stammers Part IV Theological aspects in generating transhuman and posthuman persons 9. A Jewish outlook: A Jewish case study in creating transhuman and posthuman persons, Deborah Blausten (Finchley Reform Synagogue, London) 10. A Christian outlook: The rational body: A Thomistic perspective on parenthood and posthumanism, Michael Wee (Durham University, UK) 11. An Islamic outlook: Islamic perspectives on the ethics of bringing transhuman and posthuman persons into existence Mehrunisha Suleman (University of Cambridge, UK) Part V Ethical aspects in generating transhuman and posthuman persons 12 Procreating transhuman and posthuman persons, Calum MacKellar (St Mary's University, UK) 13 Posthuman children: Questions of identity, Gillian Wright (Scottish Council on Human Bioethics, UK) Conclusion Calum MacKellar (Scottish Council on Human Bioethics, UK) and Trevor Stammers Appendix: Scottish Council on Human Bioethics recommendations on the generation of transhuman and posthuman persons Index

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Book SynopsisOUT NOW: the new book from the bestselling authors and hosts of the wildy popular ''The Skeptics Guide to the Universe''__________Our predictions of the future are a wild fantasy, inextricably linked to our present hopes and fears, biases and ignorance. Whether they be the outlandish leaps predicted in the 1920s, like multi-purpose utility belts with climate control capabilities and planes the size of luxury cruise ships, or the forecasts of the ''60s, which didn''t anticipate the sexual revolution or women''s liberation, the path to the present is littered with failed predictions and incorrect estimations.The best we can do is try to absorb from futurism''s checkered past, perhaps learning to do a little better.In The Skeptics'' Guide To The Future, Steven Novella and his co-authors build upon the work of futurists of the past by examining what they got right, what they got wrong, and how they came to those conclusi

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Book SynopsisIn this second volume of The Information Age trilogy, with an extensive new preface following the recent global economic crisis, Manuel Castells deals with the social, political, and cultural dynamics associated with the technological transformation of our societies and with the globalization of the economy. Extensive new preface examines how dramatic recent events have transformed the socio-political landscape of our world Applies Castells' hypotheses to contemporary issues such as Al Qaeda and global terrorist networks, American unilateralism and the crisis of political legitimacy throughout the world A brilliant account of social, cultural, and political conflict and struggle all over the world Analyzes the importance of cultural, religious, and national identity as sources of meaning for people, and its implications for social movement Throws new light on the dynamics of global and local change Table of ContentsList of Figures xii List of Tables xiv List of Charts xvi Preface to the 2010 Edition of The Power of Identity xvii Preface and Acknowledgments 2003 xxxvii Acknowledgments 1996 xliii Our World, our Lives 1 1 Communal Heavens: Identity and Meaning in the Network Society 5 The Construction of Identity 6 God's Heavens: Religious Fundamentalism and Cultural Identity 12 Umma versus Jahiliya: Islamic fundamentalism 13 God save me! American Christian fundamentalism 23 Nations and Nationalisms in the Age of Globalization: Imagined Communities or Communal Images? 30 Nations against the state: the breakup of the Soviet Union and the Commonwealth of Impossible States (Sojuz Nevozmoznykh Gosudarstv) 35 Nations without a state: Catalunya 45 Nations of the information age 54 Ethnic Unbonding: Race, Class, and Identity in the Network Society 56 Territorial Identities: The Local Community 63 Conclusion: The Cultural Communes of the Information Age 68 2 The Other Face of the Earth: Social Movements against the New Global Order 71 Globalization, Informationalization, and Social Movements 72 Mexico's Zapatistas: The First Informational Guerrilla Movement 75 Who are the Zapatistas? 77 The value structure of the Zapatistas: identity, adversaries, and goals 80 The communication strategy of the Zapatistas: the Internet and the media 82 The contradictory relationship between social movement and political institution 85 Up in Arms against the New World Order: The American Militia and the Patriot Movement 87 The militias and the Patriots: a multi-thematic information network 90 The Patriots’ banners 95 Who are the Patriots? 98 The militia, the Patriots, and American society 99 The Lamas of Apocalypse: Japan's Aum Shinrikyo 100 Asahara and the development of Aum Shinrikyo 101 Aum's beliefs and methodology 104 Aum and Japanese society 105 Al-Qaeda, 9/11, and Beyond: Global Terror in the Name of God 108 The goals and values of al-Qaeda 111 The evolving process of al-Qaeda’s struggle 115 The mujahedeen and their support bases 119 The young lion of the global jihad: Osama bin Laden 124 From bin Laden to bin Mahfouz: financial networks, Islamic networks, terrorist networks 128 Networking and media politics: the organization, tactics, and strategy of al-Qaeda 135 9/11 and beyond: death or birth of a networked, global, fundamentalist movement? 140 "No Globalization without Representation!": The Anti-globalization Movement 145 "El pueblo desunido jamas sera vencido": the diversity of the anti-globalization movement 147 The values and goals of the movement against globalization 152 Networking as a political way of being 154 An informational movement: the theatrical tactics of anti-globalization militants 156 The movement in context: social change and institutional change 158 The Meaning of Insurgencies against the New Global Order 160 Conclusion: The Challenge to Globalization 166 3 The Greening of the Self: The Environmental Movement 168 The Creative Cacophony of Environmentalism: A Typology 170 The Meaning of Greening: Societal Issues and the Ecologists’ Challenge 179 Environmentalism in Action: Reaching Minds, Taming Capital, Courting the State, Tap-dancing with the Media 186 Environmental Justice: Ecologists' New Frontier 190 4 The End of Patriarchalism: Social Movements, Family, and Sexuality in the Information Age 192 The Crisis of the Patriarchal Family 196 Women at Work 215 Sisterhood is Powerful: The Feminist Movement 234 American feminism: a discontinuous continuity 235 Is feminism global? 243 Feminism: an inducive polyphony 252 The Power of Love: Lesbian and Gay Liberation Movements 261 Feminism, lesbianism, and sexual liberation movements in Taipei 266 Spaces of freedom: the gay community in San Francisco 271 Summing up: sexual identity and the patriarchal family 279 Family, Sexuality, and Personality in the Crisis of Patriarchalism 280 The incredibly shrinking family 280 The reproduction of mothering under the non-reproduction of patriarchalism 288 Body identity: the (re)construction of sexuality 294 Flexible personalities in a post-patriarchal world 299 The End of Patriarchalism? 301 5 Globalization, Identification, and the State: A Powerless State or a Network State? 303 Globalization and the State 304 The transnational core of national economies 305 A statistical appraisal of the new fiscal crisis of the state in the global economy 307 Globalization and the welfare state 312 Global communication networks, local audiences, uncertain regulators 316 A lawless world? 321 The Nation-state in the Age of Multilateralism 323 Global Governance and Networks of Nation-states 328 Identities, Local Governments, and the Deconstruction of the Nation-state 332 The Identification of the State 337 The Return of the State 340 The state, violence, and surveillance: from Big Brother to little sisters 340 American unilateralism and the new geopolitics 344 The Iraq War and its aftermath 349 The consequences of American unilateralism 353 The Crisis of the Nation-state, the Network State, and the Theory of the State 356 Conclusion: The King of the Universe, Sun Tzu, and the Crisis of Democracy 364 6 Informational Politics and the Crisis of Democracy 367 Introduction: The Politics of Society 367 Media as the Space of Politics in the Information Age 371 Politics and the media: the citizens’ connection 371 Show politics and political marketing: the American model 375 Is European politics being "Americanized"? 381 Bolivia's electronic populism: compadre Palenque and the coming of Jach'a Uru 386 Informational Politics in Action: The Politics of Scandal 391 The Crisis of Democracy 402 Conclusion: Reconstructing Democracy? 414 Conclusion: Social Change in the Network Society 419 Methodological Appendix 429 Appendix for Tables 5.1 and 5.2 429 Appendix for Figure 6.9: Level of Support for Mainstream Parties in National Elections, 1980–2002 456 Summary of Contents of Volumes I and III 464 References 466 Index 512

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Book SynopsisFlash crashes. Speed dating. Instant messaging. From the devices we carry to the lives we lead, everything is getting faster, faster. But where did this great acceleration come from? And where will it lead? In this vitally important new book, Robert Colvile explains how the cult of disruption in Silicon Valley, the ceaseless advance of technology and our own fundamental appetite for novelty and convenience have combined to speed up every aspect of daily life. Drawing on the latest research, this book traces the path of this acceleration through our working and social lives, the food we buy and the music to which we listen. It explains how it's transforming the media, politics and the financial markets and asks whether our bodies, and the natural environment, can cope. As we race towards the future into a world packed with new technologies, new ideas and new discoveries this scintillating and engrossing book is an invaluable, must-read guide to the wonders and dangers that awTrade ReviewA must-read. The effects of acceleration are real, and we need to start taking them seriously -- Steve Hilton, author of 'More Human'In a run, run, runaway world, Colvile’s The Great Acceleration is an indispensable guide to keeping up. A book that raises eyebrows and questions in equal measure. A meticulous, thoughtful, candid, sometimes stark and yet ultimately optimistic study of humanity, and our breath-taking desire for change -- Boris JohnsonA punchy and wide-ranging book about how our lives and our society are speeding up, when to apply the brakes and how to enjoy the ride -- Tim Harford, author of 'The Undercover Economist'It’s true - life is speeding up. But don’t despair, overall that’s a good thing for prosperity and quality of life, though it may not feel so as the emails pile up… This book is as fast-paced as its subject matter, and well worth making time for -- Mark Lynas, author of 'The God Species'Colvile is never less than engaging. Not a paragraph passes without an appealing factoid … It is also inflected by a healthy sense of humour … Given how easy it is to accentuate the negative, this is a book well worth reading, especially for the technological naysayers * Daily Telegraph *An alert and readable survey of the effects of “the great acceleration” on tech firms, social media, art, news media, politics, banking and the environment. Its statistics are certainly striking * Sunday Times *Despite the intriguing theme, I picked up this book with a heavy heart. There are now so many books inspired by Malcolm Gladwell that they’ve become formulaic… I needn’t have worried. Colvile, a journalist, has done a very good job indeed. It’s an interesting idea and he manages to persuade the reader that it matters. It’s rare to go for a whole paragraph without learning something unexpected, funny or disturbing. The amount of research he has done is impressive. The Great Acceleration is really an excellent book -- Daniel Finkelstein, Book of the Week * The Times *Colvile is an entertaining writer and his subject is a fascinating one * Evening Standard *Compulsive, illuminating and ever-so-slightly terrifying -- James Delingpole * Mail on Sunday *Excellently researched and thoughtful * Spectator *Provides food for thought * How It Works *Looking for a seriously good summer read? The Great Acceleration is a brilliant take on how our world is changing -- Daniel HannanA very smart book by Robert Colvile on the fact that things are getting -- William Leith * Evening Standard *

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Book Synopsis''These minibiographies of women who persisted will move anyone with an avid curiosity about the world.'' Publishers Weekly With a foreword by Athene Donald, Professor of Experimental Physics, University of Cambridge and Master of Churchill College.Ten Women Who Changed Science tells the moving stories of the physicists, biologists, chemists, astronomers and doctors who helped to shape our world with their extraordinary breakthroughs and inventions, and outlines their remarkable achievements.These scientists overcame significant obstacles, often simply because they were women. Their science and their lives were driven by personal tragedies and shaped by seismic world events. What drove these remarkable women to cure previously incurable diseases, disprove existing theories or discover new sources of energy? Some were rewarded with the Nobel Prize for their pioneering achievements -Madame Curie, twice - others were not and, even if Trade ReviewThese minibiographies of women who persisted will move anyone with an avid curiosity about the world. * Publishers Weekly *Students of the history of science will also find the detailed stories of these women fascinating. The biographical details merge effortlessly with their professional challenges. What also keeps the interest intact is the fact that these women all hailed from a variety of disciplines within the sciences. -- Debashis Gangopadhyay * Telegraph (India) *

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Book SynopsisFeaturing contributions from an international array of futurists, The Future Starts Now provides fascinating insights and guidance into how society and business will transform in the years to come.The future is an uncertain, uncomfortable prospect for employees, employers and society at large. A flurry of unprecedented events have proven that, despite what some politicians and economists may tell us, the future is not set in stone. In light of this uncertainty, The Future Starts Now looks toward the various innovations and technologies that may shape our future. Authors Theo Priestley and Bronwyn Williams have brought together the world''s leading futurists to articulate and clarify the current trajectories in technology, economics, politics and business. This is a comprehensive history of tomorrow, exploring groundbreaking topics such as AI, privacy, education and the future of work. While the guidance, insight and predictions are fascinating foTrade ReviewA fascinating and profoundly inspiring read that offers both practical advice, dazzlingly provocative and exciting ideas and that is a joy to read. A collection of the finest minds, in their very best form, doing the most valuable of things in offering us clarity, wisdom, inspiration and guidance. -- Tom Goodwin, consultant, speaker and author of 'Digital Darwinism'The future isn’t what it used to be. It is now open to the dreamers, thinkers and creatives to create the future that benefits us all. Theo and Bronwyn have personally curated the thoughts of those who care about a brighter, more prosperous future for everyone. The future starts now… with you. -- Brian Solis, digital anthropologist, futurist and author of LifescaleA mind-blowing journey that challenges the reader, with essays both fascinating and challenging. -- Michael Dolbec, Executive Managing Director, GE VenturesA wonderful compendium from some of today’s most thoughtful futurists, ethicists, economists, technologists, and researchers. If you are curious about what the future holds, this is the place to start. -- Dave Evans, CIO, Computer History MuseumBronwyn and Theo have extracted and curated a treasure trove of scenarios, ideas and strategies for succeeding in an increasingly uncertain tomorrow. Devoid of shtick or snake oil, this book is an indispensable tool for the modern business leader. -- Mike Stopforth, Director, Beyond BinaryA necessary wake-up call! We need to be asking these tougher questions, as part of honest and pragmatic conversations, with a broad range of voices, to avoid sleepwalking into an inhuman future. -- Ed Greig, Chief Disruptor, DeloitteDizzying, provocative and smart analysis on what should matter to humankind, today and tomorrow. Factual, contemporary and realistic, this story encourages positive thinking about the decisions we must take to deliver on the promise of a better future. -- Martin Jetter, Chairman, IBM Europe, Middle East & AfricaThe Future Starts Now offers diverse narratives of the future: positive and negative, fearful and hopeful, social and technological. In particular, by emphasising social change and empowering to shape our own future in the present, it provides a contemporary view of foresight. -- Tanja Schindler, Futurist and Founder, Futures SpaceWhether you are pessimistic or optimistic about the future… read this book! -- Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Founder & CEO, TNWWith excellent essays exploring topics as diverse as education and Mars, this is an inspirational read for anyone aspiring for a pragmatic utopia! -- Stefan Ferber, Co-CEO & CTO, Bosch.IO

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Book SynopsisTechnological innovations have advanced at an incredible speed since the introduction of the computer that it has altered the fabric of our society.  The possession of computers, smart-devices, along with social media, texting and video games, is now an intimate part of the structure of our culture. This book is a framework to start a conversation on how technology is changing our lifestyles and transforming our world. There is now an entire generation that has been using technology through the most delicate developmental time in their lives. This book presents how to look at the cognitive and psychosocial developmental stages and what are the age-appropriate milestones and factsheet of behaviors at different ages. It provides insight into the strength and vulnerable characteristics at each stage and the prevalence of some negative conditions in our society. You will gain a perspective of the encouraging and challenging aspects of computer learning, smart devices, aTable of ContentsPart 1: Scientific AdvancesChapter 1: The History of Computers and Personal ComputerChapter 2: History of the Internet, Search Engines, Emails, Word Processors, WiFi, and TextingChapter 3: History of Smart Devices, Video Games and Video Communication, and ConferencingPart 2: History of Social MediaChapter 4: Beginning of Social Media's LaunchChapter 5: Meta, Twitter, Spotify, Instagram, Pinterest, Snap Chat and Tik TokPart 3: Synopsis of Psychological Theories, with Behavioral Milestones and Factsheet as SupportChapter 6: Jean Piaget's Life and Stages of Cognitive DevelopmentChapter 7: Erik Erickson's Life and Psychosocial Developmental StagesChapter 8: CDC and Medline Milestones and APA Factsheet GuidelinesPart 4: Developing a Framework and an Understanding of the Problem's in Today's WorldChapter 9: Guidelines on When and How to Give Your Children TechnologyChapter 10: Common Problems Prevalent in Today's SocietyChapter 11: Conclusions and Thoughts.

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Book SynopsisWe're experiencing a time when digital technologies and advances in artificial intelligence, robotics, and big data are redefining what it means to be human. How do these advancements affect contemporary media and music? This collection traces how media, with a focus on sound and image, engages with these new technologies. It bridges the gap between science and the humanities by pairing humanists' close readings of contemporary media with scientists' discussions of the science and math that inform them. This text includes contributions by established and emerging scholars performing across-the-aisle research on new technologies, exploring topics such as facial and gait recognition; EEG and audiovisual materials; surveillance; and sound and images in relation to questions of sexual identity, race, ethnicity, disability, and class and includes examples from a range of films and TV shows including Blade Runner, Black Mirror, Mr. Robot, Morgan, Ex Trade ReviewThe membrane between media and mind has been dissolving for a century. Cybermedia turns the membrane into an irrigation system. A new kind of practice as much as a book, Cybermedia brings makers, scientists and scholars into dialogues that pass through old borders, subtly transformed and transforming. From comic books to paranoia, neurotransmitters to Radiohead, Cybermedia opens a new landscape of social-technical minds and media as things to study and ways of studying them. * Sean Cubitt, Professor of Screen Studies, University of Melbourne, Australia *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Contributors Introduction Jonathan Leal and Carol Vernallis Part I: AI and Robotics 1. Could the AI of Our Dreams Ever Become Reality? Jay McClelland 2. Director Alex Garland Converses with Cybermedia’s Scientists and Media Scholars Jonathan Leal and Carol Vernallis 3. (S)Ex Machina and the Cartesian Theater of the Absurd Simon D. Levy and Charles W. Lowney 4. Epiphany, Infinity and Transcendent AI Zachary Mason Part II: Big Data, Sentience, and the Universe 5. A MASSIVE Swirl of Pixels: Algorithms in Radiohead’s ‘Go to Sleep’ Steen Ledet Christiansen 6. The Rise of the Machine: Body-Knowing, Neural Nets, and Emergent Freedom Charles W. Lowney 7. The Quantum Computer as Sci-Fi’s Favorite Character Leonardo P. G. De Assis 8. Composer Ben Salisbury Discusses Scoring Science for Alex Garland Holly Rogers, John McGrath, Carol Vernallis, and Dale Chapman 9. Ex Machina and the Question of Consciousness Murray Shanahan Part III: The Neuroscience of Affect and Event Perception 10. ‘A Solid Popularity Arc’: Affective Economies in Black Mirror’s ‘Nosedive’ Dale Chapman 11. Cognitive Boundaries, ‘Nosedive’ and Under the Skin: Interview with Jeffrey Zacks Carol Vernallis, Jonathan Leal, and Dale Chapman 12. Toward an AI Future of Comics Study and Creation: A Cognitive-Affective Approach Frederick Aldama and Laura Wagner Part IV: The Digital West 13. The Philosophy of Westworld Paul Skokowski 14. New Visions of the Old West: A.I., Self, and Other in Westworld Christopher Minz 15. Scoring Music for Westworld Then and Now: A Cognitive Perspective Annabel J. Cohen Part V: Interface, Desire, Collectivity 16. Director Terence Nance Discusses Random Acts of Flyness Carol Vernallis, Jonathan Leal, Holly Rogers, Liz Reich and the contributors of Cybermedia 17. The Gift of Black Sonics: Interface and Ontology in Sorry to Bother You and Random Acts of Flyness Liz Reich 18. Technology, Chaos, and the Nimble Subversion of Random Acts of Flyness Eric Lyon 19. Expecting the Twist: How Media Navigate the Intersections Among Different Sources of Prior Knowledge Noah Fram 20. Face Color Bevil Conway Part VI: Productive Neuropathologies 21. Digital Vitalism Marta Figlerowicz 22. Neuroplasticity: From Experience to Healing Sara Ferrando Colomer 23. Where is My Mind? Mr. Robot and the Digital Neuropolis Patricia Pisters 24. Dopamine Circuits: Wanting, Liking, Habits, and Goals. An Interview about Mr. Robot with Neuroscientist Talia Lerner Jonathan Leal, Carol Vernallis, and Patricia Pisters 25. The Taste of Cybermedia: An Interview with Hojoon Lee, The Lee Lab at Northwestern University Julia Peres Guimaraes, Selmin Kara, and Carol Vernallis Index

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Book SynopsisBy examining three case studies of award-winning soundtracks from cult filmsBarton Fink (1991), Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), and The English Patient (1996)it becomes clear that major American film communities, when confronted with the initial technological changes of the 1990s, experienced similar challenges with the inelegant transition from analogue to digital. However, their cultural and structural labor differences governed different results.Vanessa Ament, author of The Foley Grail (2009), rather than defining the 1990s as an era of technological determinisma superficial readingit is best understood as one in which sound professionals became more viable as artists, collaborated in sound design authorship, and influenced this digital transition to better accommodate their needs and desires in their work.Trade ReviewDivergent Tracks reveals a first-hand account of the behind-the-scene world of postproduction film sound in the 1990s, a key moment when industry professionals grappled with the disruptive transition from analogue to digital technologies. In her masterful account, Dr. Ament rigorously details how three geographically distinct film communities each made critical contributions to the development of digital film sound and how their innovative practices changed the way we listen to the movies. I anticipate that Dr. Ament’s book will change how we also regard the role of sound designers and their post-production teams by helping us all better recognize their major contributions to the craft of moviemaking as creative professionals in their own right. * Richard Lawrence Edwards, Director for the Center for Teaching & Learning, University of California, Riverside, USA *Table of Contents1. Sound Design as Cultural Artifact 2. Geographical Cultures and Technological Tendencies 3. "Viscous was the Word of the Day": The Interiority of Barton Fink 4. "How Would you Like to Work on a Monster Movie?": The Expressionism of Bram Stoker's Dracula 5. "The Sound of the Desert is Tape Hiss": A Study in Contrasts in The English Patient 6. Conclusion: Reassessing Sound Design as a Collective Endeavor Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisDigital, visual media are found in most aspects of everyday life, from workplaces to household devices computer and digital television screens, appliances such as refrigerators and home assistants, and applications for social media and gaming. Each technologically enabled opportunity brings an increasingly sophisticated language with the act of pursuing the intrasensorial ways of perceiving the world around us through touch, movement, sound and vision that is the heart of screen media use and audience engagement with digital artifacts. Drawing on digital media's currently evolving transformation and transforming capacity this book builds a story of the multiple processes in robotics and AI, virtual reality, creative image and sound production, the representation of data and creative practice. Issues around commodification, identity, identification, and political economy are critically examined for the emerging and affecting encounters and perceptions thaTrade ReviewAn interesting collection of diverse reflections on sight, image, sound and movement in relation to digital media. * Amanda Third, Professor, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University, Australia *Its themes and concerns are very exciting and timely as we wrestle with big data, new concepts of the self, complex augmented-perception and AR devices and ever-increasing layers of surveillance and self-surveillance. While exploring the prosthetic joys of these new realms, it also helps explain how we grow trapped in our haptics and gamed by our games. * Amedeo D'Adamo, Faculty, American Film Institute, USA and Visiting Professor in the Department of Media, Universita Cattolica, Italy *Table of ContentsAcknowledgements and Dedications List of Contributors Introduction Contents page SECTION ONE: SOCIO-AESTHETICS OF SOUND AND SIGHT Chapter One: Virtual Reality, the Chiasm, and the Doubled Body Angela Ndalianis Chapter Two: Sensing Sims: Atmospheres, Aesthetics and the Cyborg Player Merlin Seller Chapter Three: Embodied Audiovisual Experience: The Role of Sound in Contemporary Screen and Digital Media Darrin Verhagan and Ben Byrne Chapter Four: Volumetric Black: Post-Cinematic Blackness Triton Mobley SECTION TWO: MEANING-MAKING IN THE DATA-DRIVEN ERA OF QUANTIFIED MEDIA Chapter Five: Quantified Me, Curatorial Lives and the Pixelated Spectre of Self Toija Cinque Chapter Six: Virtual Reality and Kinaesthetic Connection: Qualities of ‘Being There'. Kim Vincs Chapter Seven: Feminist Memes: Digital Communities, Identity Performance, and Resistance from the Shadows Shana MacDonald and Brianna I. Wiens Chapter Eight: The Infinite Portrait: A Case of Post-Human Authorship Andrew McIntyre SECTION THREE: TOUCH, BODY, METAL, SCREEN Chapter Nine: First Encounters with Robots Through Embodied Observation, Imagined Narrative, and Choreography Amy LaViers Chapter Ten: Physical Digitality: Making reality visible through multimodal digital affordances for Human Perception Luke Heemsbergen, Greg Bowtell and Jordan Beth Vincent Chapter Eleven: A True Feel: Re-Embodying the Touch Sense in the Digital Fashion Experience Michela Ornati Chapter Twelve: What Robots Learn from Performative Relationships and Interactive Performance Steph Hutchison and John McCormick SECTION FOUR: DIGITAL FUTURES Chapter Thirteen: Smart Home: Smart Devices and the Everyday Experiences of the Home Xi Cui Chapter Fourteen: Affect and the Digitalization of War John MacWillie Chapter Fifteen: Automation in a Myth Luke Munn Chapter Sixteen: A Triadic Typology of Material Mediation: Ontology, Intentionality and Vitalism Renata Morais

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Book SynopsisWhat unites Google and Facebook, Apple and Microsoft, Siemens and GE, Uber and Airbnb? Across a wide range of sectors, these firms are transforming themselves into platforms: businesses that provide the hardware and software foundation for others to operate on. This transformation signals a major shift in how capitalist firms operate and how they interact with the rest of the economy: the emergence of �platform capitalism�. This book critically examines these new business forms, tracing their genesis from the long downturn of the 1970s to the boom and bust of the 1990s and the aftershocks of the 2008 crisis. It shows how the fundamental foundations of the economy are rapidly being carved up among a small number of monopolistic platforms, and how the platform introduces new tendencies within capitalism that pose significant challenges to any vision of a post-capitalist future. This book will be essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how the most powerful tech companies of our time are transforming the global economy."Trade Review‘Platform Capitalism is a high definition snapshot of the current political economic situation than manages to get a lot of detail into a tight frame. It offers a convincing image of the current stage of capitalist development as a series of variations on the theme of the platform as a means of consolidating or seizing a kind of monopoly leverage over not only distribution but also production. Srnicek gives good reasons for thinking the platform moment in capital accumulation might be less all-conquering than it looks.’ McKenzie Wark, author of Telethesia: Communication, Culture and Class"Probe the slithering, creeping collusion between public and private, work and exhaustion, capitalism and death. As cars transform into terrorist devices and public housing explodes into flame through neglectful policies, planning and practices, we require books to understand the loss of agency, the loss of choice and the permanent revolution of fear, confusion and ignorance."Times Higher Education Supplement"…Srnicek builds an illuminating 120-page dissertation on where the platform came from, and where it might take us."Literary Review of Canada"It’s one of those books that so neatly gets to the heart of how modern society in the 21st century functions."PajibaTable of ContentsAcknowledgements vi Introduction 1 1 The Long Downturn 9 2 Platform Capitalism 36 3 Great Platform Wars 93 Notes 130 References 141

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Book SynopsisBoasting trillion-dollar companies, the digital economy profits from our emotions, our relationships with each other, and the ways we interact with the world. In this timely book, Tim Jordan deftly explores the workings of the digital economy. He discusses the hype and significance surrounding its activities and practices in order to outline important concepts, theory, and policy questions. Through a variety of in-depth case studies, he examines the areas of search, social media, service providers, free economic activity, and digital gaming. Companies discussed include Google, Baidu, Uber, Bitcoin, Wikipedia, Fortnight, and World of Warcraft. Jordan argues that the digital economy is not concerned primarily with selling products, but relies instead on creating communities that can be read by software and algorithms. Profit is then extracted through targeted advertising, subscriptions, misleading 'purchases', and service relations. The Digital Economy is an important reference for students and scholars getting to grips with this enormous contemporary phenomenon.Trade Review"A lively excursion across the varied terrains of the 'digital economy', in which the author argues that it’s not platform technologies that drive our digital searching, working, socialising and gaming, but our deep embeddedness in shared social practices, habits and collective communities."Mark Banks, University of Leicester "Writing in a personal and lively style, Tim Jordan intelligently explores the digital economic practices that constitute search, social media, online gaming and more. Tracing the perspectives, tactics and activities of users, advertisers and platforms, he separates the hype from the reality."Thomas Poell, University of Amsterdam“a welcome addition that STS scholars may find useful for future research projects conceptualising the remaking of property regimes.”LSE Review of BooksTable of ContentsAcknowledgements 1 Introduction: The Meaning of the Digital Economy 2 Search 3 Social Media 4 Taxis, Hotels and Blockchains 5 Free Online Economies 6 Online Games 7 Profit, Labour, Production and Consumption 8 Defining the Digital Economy 9 Policy 10 Conclusion References Index

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Book SynopsisIn an era of accelerating technology and increasing complexity, how should we reimagine the emancipatory potential of feminism? How should gender politics be reconfigured in a world being transformed by automation, globalization and the digital revolution? These questions are addressed in this bold new book by Helen Hester, a founding member of the 'Laboria Cuboniks' collective that developed the acclaimed manifesto 'Xenofeminism: A Politics for Alienation'. Hester develops a three-part definition of xenofeminism grounded in the ideas of technomaterialism, anti-naturalism, and gender abolitionism. She elaborates these ideas in relation to assistive reproductive technologies and interrogates the relationship between reproduction and futurity, while steering clear of a problematic anti-natalism. Finally, she examines what xenofeminist technologies might look like in practice, using the history of one specific device to argue for a future-oriented gender politics that can facilitate alternative models of reproduction. Challenging and iconoclastic, this visionary book is the essential guide to one of the most exciting intellectual trends in contemporary feminism.Trade Review"This is without doubt one of the most exciting texts I have read for quite some time. Lucid, well-grounded and brilliantly original, this short book is a breath of fresh air."Claire Colebrook, Pennsylvania State University�Helen Hester has her eyes set firmly on the future... its impact will be far reaching.�DIVA Magazine�Pithy and engaging... I heartily recommend this well-argued, provocative, and timely text.�Philosophy NowTable of Contents Contents Introduction 1. What is Xenofeminism? 2. Xenofeminist Futurities 3. Xenofeminist Technologies Conclusion: Xeno-Reproduction Endnotes Works Cited

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Book SynopsisThe story of the artistic collaboration between the originators of the ecosex movement, their diverse communities, and the Earth What’s sexy about saving the planet? Funny you should ask. Because that is precisely—or, perhaps, broadly—what Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens have spent many years bringing to light in their live art, exhibitions, and films. In 2008, Sprinkle and Stephens married the Earth, which set them on the path to explore the realms of ecosexuality as they became lovers with the Earth and made their mutual pleasure an embodied expression of passion for the environment. Ever since, they have been not just pushing but obliterating the boundaries circumscribing biology and ecology, creating ecosexual art in their performance of an environmentalism that is feminist, queer, sensual, sexual, posthuman, materialist, exuberant, and steeped in humor.Assuming the Ecosexual Position tells of childhood moments that pointed to a future of ecosexuality—for Annie, in her family swimming pool in Los Angeles; for Beth, savoring forbidden tomatoes from the vine on her grandparents’ Appalachian farm. The book describes how the two came together as lovers and collaborators, how they took a stand against homophobia and xenophobia, and how this union led to the miraculous conception of the Love Art Laboratory, which involved influential performance artists Linda M. Montano, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, and feminist pornographer Madison Young. Stephens and Sprinkle share the process of making interactive performance art, including the Chemo Fashion Show, Cuddle, Sidewalk Sex Clinics, and Ecosex Walking Tours. Over the years, they celebrated many more weddings to various nature entities, from the Appalachian Mountains to the Adriatic Sea. To create these weddings, they collaborated with hundreds of people and invited thousands of guests as they vowed to love, honor, and cherish the many elements of the Earth.As entertaining as it is deeply serious, and arriving at a perilous time of sharp differences and constricting categories, the story of this artistic collaboration between Sprinkle, Stephens, their diverse communities, and the Earth opens gender and sexuality, art and environmentalism, to the infinite possibilities and promise of love.Trade Review"Tuned to the more than human, Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens have married widely and well, mating with the airs, waters, and places of Earth, inviting their companions into profligate kinning for earthly survival. They have taken me on their ecosexual journeys, rolling around with them on their theoretical and performative ground to get sufficiently soiled to be brave enough to join the old whore and the hillbilly in their radical practices of joy, love, and rage. Read this book, revel in its wacky seriousness, risk its call to transformative art and life."—Donna Haraway, author of Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene"This book is a manifesto, a memoir, a call to action, a piece of art, and a love story. As we fight to save our planet, consider Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens’s approach, which is rooted in our bodies and our relationships to one another and nature. Their form of environmental activism smashes binaries, promotes radical inclusivity, and embraces the power of pleasure."—Tristan Taormino, author of Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships"Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens give the ‘eco-curious’ a holistic and multifaceted insight into their practice and pedagogy. Through storytelling, poetic manifestos, and detailed descriptions of projects, the artists trace their relentless commitment to all forms of ecosex devotion and offer readers an open-ended guide on how to embody and enact a daily earth-loving practice."—Guillermo Gómez-Peña, performance artist, writer, and artistic director of La Pocha NostraTable of ContentsContentsForeplayUna Chaudhuri Preface: Hello Earthlings! Welcome to Our Book Introduction: Rolling around on the Theoretical GroundEcosexual Glossary1. Our Ecosex Herstories2. First Comes Art, Then Comes Marriage3. The Miraculous Conception of Love Art Lab4. Nascent Ecosexuals: Hello, Green!5. Happy Trails and the Climax of Love Art Lab 6. Off the Beaten Path7. The E.A.R.T.H. Lab Experiments8. An Old Whore and a Hillbilly Make a Splash at documenta 149. Conclusion: Sincerely YoursAfterwordPaul B. PreciadoPostscriptLinda M. Montano Field Guides: Acknowledgments from Beth and AnnieNotesBetween the Covers: Related Books and MoviesIndex

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Book SynopsisTakes the singular eco-catastrophic “Age of Man” and redefines this epoch We live in a new world: the Anthropocene. The Age of Man is defined in many ways, and most dramatically through climate change, mass extinction, and human marks in the geological record. Ideas of the Anthropocene spill out from the geophysical sciences into the humanities, social sciences, the arts, and mainstream debates—but it’s hard to know what the new coinage really means. Break Up the Anthropocene argues that this age should subvert imperial masculinity and industrial conquest by opening up the plural possibilities of Anthropocene debates of resilience, adaptation, and the struggle for environmental justice. Forerunners: Ideas First Short books of thought-in-process scholarship, where intense analysis, questioning, and speculation take the lead

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Book SynopsisA leading philosopher seeks to recover “common sense” as a meeting place to reconcile science and philosophy With her previous books on Alfred North Whitehead, Isabelle Stengers not only secured a reputation as one of the premier philosophers of our times but also inspired a rethinking of critical theory, political thought, and radical philosophy across a range of disciplines. Here, Stengers unveils what might well be seen as her definitive reading of Whitehead.Making Sense in Common will be greeted eagerly by the growing group of scholars who use Stengers’s work on Whitehead as a model for how to think with conceptual precision through diverse domains of inquiry: environmentalism and ecology, animal studies, media and technology studies, the history and philosophy of science, feminism, and capitalism. On the other hand, the significance of this new book extends beyond Whitehead. Instead, it lies in Stengers’s recovery of the idea of “common sense” as a meeting place—a commons—where opposed ideas of science and humanistic inquiry can engage one another and help to move society forward. Her reconciliation of science and philosophy is especially urgent today—when climate disaster looms all around us, when the values of what we thought of as civilization and modernity are discredited, and when expertise of any kind is under attack.Trade Review"With her lifelong intellectual companion, Alfred North Whitehead, Isabelle Stengers reactivates an old sort of thing, a necessary thing that is almost impossible to imagine in our corrupt times—namely, ‘common sense,’ ‘making sense in common.’ This vital book thinks deeply about a shareable problematic for holding serious thinkers and doers together to face something real and particular, here and now, not all the time everywhere. Making Sense in Common activates the speculative imagination that things really could be different so that they might actually become different."—Donna Haraway, author of Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene"Common sense gets bad press. It is dismissed as a woefully unrigorous middle ground between the expert knowledge systems it disdains and alternative knowledges, like those of Indigenous peoples, whose existence it is loath to acknowledge. But what if we turned things around, moving from common sense to the sense of the common? This is the wager of Isabelle Stengers’s book: that the commonplace of common sense can give way to a problematic space for the negotiation of differences involving all, with a shared commitment to 'staying with the trouble.' In a major reversioning of her political thought, Making Sense in Common endeavors to reactivate common sense as a pragmatic opening onto a metamorphic universe of becoming-together in the face of the world's seemingly intractable problems."—Brian Massumi, author of Couplets: Travels in Speculative Pragmatism"Under the cloak of Alfred North Whitehead’s philosophy, Isabelle Stengers unfurls a brilliant critique of the science of expertise and the devastating consequence it is having on our common ecological future. This is a must-read for anyone who cares about the politics of science and is looking for a new way of doing philosophy."—Elizabeth A. Povinelli, author of Between Gaia and Ground: Four Axioms of Existence and the Ancestral Catastrophe of Late Liberalism

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Book SynopsisA critical examination of the figure of the neural network as it mediates neuroscientific and computational discourses and technical practicesNeural Networks proposes to reconstruct situated practices, social histories, mediating techniques, and ontological assumptions that inform the computational project of the same name. If so-called machine learning comprises a statistical approach to pattern extraction, then neural networks can be defined as a biologically inspired model that relies on probabilistically weighted neuron-like units to identify such patterns. Far from signaling the ultimate convergence of human and machine intelligence, however, neural networks highlight the technologization of neurophysiology that characterizes virtually all strands of neuroscientific and AI research of the past century. Taking this traffic as its starting point, this volume explores how cognition came to be constructed as essentially computational in nature, to the poin

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Book SynopsisEvery month, groups of people from all over the United Kingdom decide what kind of research should be carried out on patients within the NHS. These groups – Research Ethics Committees (RECs) – made up of doctors, nurses, researchers, and members of the general public – help shape the future of medicine, and play a crucial role in the regulation of a wide range of research from social science to epidemiology, vaccine and drugs trials to surgery. Based on extensive observations, interviews, and archival research, this book provides an in-depth insight into RECs, one of the most crucial forms of regulation around medical research. In providing one of the first empirical examinations of this kind of regulation, this book challenges the impersonal, de-socialised, and mechanical models of REC decision-making.Table of ContentsIntroduction – On the margins of a trusting system1 Paper promises or written applications as trust warrants2 Trust, local knowledge, and distributed centralisation3 Facework, interaction, and the performance of trustworthiness4 Reviewing science, trusting the reviewersConclusion – Regulatory giraffes?Index

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Book SynopsisTechnology affects almost everything we do, and its possibilities can be both exhilarating and daunting. This collection features two radio documentaries exploring Douglas Adams’ vision of the digital future, plus Did Douglas Get it Right?, presented by Mitch Benn.Douglas Adams was a passionate technology enthusiast. His bestselling The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is full of futuristic tech, and in 1990 he predicted something very like the World Wide Web in the BBC2 film Hyperland. So in 1999, he was the natural choice to present Radio 4’s The Internet: The Last 20th Century Battleground. In it, he looked at the explosion in online communication, the evolution of cyberspace, and the risks and opportunities of the new virtual world.A year later, he hosted The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Future, in which he and his guests discussed how music, publishing, broadcasting, and society in general would be transformed in the 21st century. Sadly, this was Adams’ last BBC project: his death in 2001 meant he would never see if his visions came true.However, in 2015, Mitch Benn dipped into the archives for a follow-up programme, Did Douglas Get it Right?, revisiting Adams’ predictions to discover how prescient (or otherwise) they turned out to be...Fascinating, funny and insightful, these three programmes are a wonderful tribute to Douglas Adams, and a treat for fans and futurists alike.Produced by Mark Rickards.

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Book SynopsisWho steals jobs? Who owns jobs? Focusing on the competitive labour market, this book scrutinises the narratives created around immigration and automation. The authors explore how the advances in AI and demands for constant flow of immigrant workers eradicate political and working rights, fuelling fears over job theft and ownership. Shedding light on the multiple ways in which employment is used as an instrument of neoliberal governance, this revealing book sparks new debate on the role of automation and migration policies. It is an invaluable resource for academics and practitioners working in the areas of immigration and labour, capitalism and social exclusion, and economic models and political governance.Table of Contents1. Introduction: Stealing Jobs 2. The Re-Birth of Homo Oeconomicus: Self and Other, Immigrants and Robot 3. “A Necessary Evil”: Progress Through Normalising Inequalities and Competition 4. I, Robot 5. The Men Machines: Migrants as Robots 6. Expensive Robots vs Cheap Migrants 7. Nostalgia, Futurism and the Re-emergence of the Common

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Book SynopsisLonglisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2021 An anthropologist visits the frontiers of genetics, medicine, and technology to ask: whose values are guiding gene-editing experiments, and what are the implications for humanity? At a conference in Hong Kong in November 2018, Dr. Jiankui He announced that he had created the first genetically modified babies—twin girls named Lulu and Nana—sending shockwaves around the world. A year later, a Chinese court sentenced Dr. He to three years in prison for “illegal medical practice.” As scientists elsewhere start to catch up with China’s vast genetic research programme, gene editing is fuelling an innovation economy that threatens to widen racial and economic inequality. Fundamental questions about science, health, and social justice are at stake. Who gets access to gene-editing technologies? As countries loosen regulations around the globe, can we shape research agendas to promote an ethical and fair society? Professor Eben Kirksey takes us on a groundbreaking journey to meet the key scientists, lobbyists, and entrepreneurs who are bringing cutting-edge genetic modification tools like CRISPR to your local clinic. He also ventures beyond the scientific echo chamber, talking to doctors, hackers, chronically ill patients, disabled scholars, and activists and who have alternative visions of a genetically modified future for humanity. The Mutant Project empowers us to ask the right questions, uncover the truth, and navigate this new era of scientific enquiry.Table of ContentsPrologue: The World on Notice; I’m Quite Glad That I Wasn’t First; A Typical Shenzhen Story; The Best Humans Haven’t Been Produced Yet; Winner Takes All; Look at Those Muscles. Look at That Butt; A Moral Choice; Will I Have to Mortgage My House?; The Cancer Moonshot; Free Health Care for All; Silence = Death; Immorality Has to Be the Goal; I Don’t Want to Walk. I Want to Fly; High-Quality Children; #transracial; American Medicine and Only for You; He Was Busy. Busy. Always Doing Research; A Hammer. Looking for a Nail; Beautiful Lies; Two Healthy Baby Girls?; Mixed Wisdom; They Are Moving Forward; Chinese Scientists Are Creating CRISPR Babies; Bubbles Vanishing Into Air; The Horse Has Already Bolted; Epilogue: We Have Never Been Human.

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Book SynopsisThe concept of transhumanism emerged in the middle of the 20th century, and has influenced discussions around AI, brain–computer interfaces, genetic technologies and life extension. Despite its enduring influence in the public imagination, a fully developed philosophy of transhumanism has not yet been presented. In this new book, leading philosopher Stefan Lorenz Sorgner explores the critical issues that link transhumanism with digitalization, gene technologies and ethics. He examines the history and meaning of transhumanism and asks bold questions about human perfection, cyborgs, genetically enhanced entities, and uploaded minds. Offering insightful reflections on values, norms and utopia, this will be an important guide for readers interested in contemporary digital culture, gene ethics, and policy making.Table of ContentsTranshumanism: In a Nutshell On a Silicon- based Transhumanism On a Carbon- based Transhumanism A Fictive Ethics The End as a New Beginning

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Book SynopsisWhen the utility of masks or vaccinations became politicized during the COVID-19 pandemic and lost its mooring in scientific evidence, an already-developing crisis of expertise was exacerbated. Those who believe in consensus science wondered: “How can ‘those people’ not see the truth?” With a foreword by Harry Collins, this book shows that the crisis is not a "scientific" controversy, but an ideological dispute with "believers" on both sides. If the advocates for consensus science acknowledge the uncertainties involved, rather than insisting on cold, hard facts, it is possible to open a pathway towards interaction and communication, even persuasion, between world views. As the crisis of expertise continues to be a global issue, this will be an invaluable resource for readers concerned about polarized societies and the distrust of consensus science.Table of ContentsForeword - Harry Collins 1. Introduction 2. What caused, and how do we fix, our crisis of expertise? 3. Worldviews as "religious" frameworks 4. The quasi-religious aspect of the crisis of expertise 5. Belief as a form of expertise 6. Communicating across worldviews 7. Conclusion

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Book SynopsisThe threat of social-environmental destruction is a fundamental challenge for those who are interested in creating and maintaining liveable worlds. This volume will bring together international scholars in science and technology studies, environmental studies, ecological humanities, art and design, geography and other social sciences to explore practices of repairing damaged and precarious ecologies through various societal, environmental and material involvements across different locations and geographies. Contributions will offer novel theoretical perspectives and empirical insights on the reparative and insurgent capacity of mending ecologies to craft relations of care and sustenance of human and nonhuman communities. The volume will be divided into several sections that are organized around a series of concepts that denote countervailing forces, processes and movements of damaging and repairing. Each section will consist of two or three contributions that offer experimental explorations of what ecological reparation means, and each section will begin with a short note that briefly describes the key concepts and issues that will be explored within.Table of ContentsIntroduction: No justice, no ecological peace: The groundings of ecological reparation (Dimitris Papadopoulos, Maria Puig de la Bellacasa, Maddalena Tacchetti) Acknowledgements PART I Depletion: Resurgence 1. Experiments in situ: Soil repair practices as part of place-based action for change in El Salvador (Naomi Millner) 2. Hesitant: three theses on ecological reparation (otherwise) (Manuel Tironi) 3. The False Bay Coast of Cape Town: A Critical Zone (Lesley Green and Vanessa Farr) PART II Deskilling: Experimenting 4. Reflections on a mending ecology through pastures for life (Claire Waterton) 5. Fab Cities as Infrastructures for Ecological Reparation: Maker Activism, Vernacular Skills, and Prototypes for Self-Grounding Collective Life (Atsuro Morita and Kazutoshi Tsuda) 6. The Cosmoecological Workshop: Or, How to Philosophise with a Hammer (Martin Savransky) PART III Contaminating: Cohabiting 7. Multispecies mending from micro to macro: Biome restoration, carbon recycling, and ecologies of participation (Eleanor Hadley Kershaw) 8. Involvement as an ethics for more than human interdependencies (Nerea Calvillo) 9. From Museum to MOB (Timothy Choy) PART IV Enclosing: Reclaiming Land 10. Land in Our Names: Building an Anti-Racist Food Movement (Sam Siva) 11. Land reparations and ecological justice – an Interview with Sam Siva (Maria Puig de la Bellacasa and Dimitris Papadopoulos) 12. Waste, improvement and repair on Ireland's Peat Bogs (Patrick Bresnihan and Patrick Brodie) 13. New Peasantries in Italy: Eco-commons, Agroecology and Food Communities (Andrea Ghelfi) 14. “Obedecer a la Vida”: Environmental Citizenship Otherwise? (Juan Camilo Cajigas) PART V Loss: Recollecting 15. Travelling Memories: Repairing the past and imagining the future in medium-secure forensic psychiatric care (Steven D. Brown, Paula Reavey, Donna Ciarlo and Abisola Balogun-Katung) 16. Conversations on benches (Leila Dawney and Linda Brothwell) 17. Curating reparation and recrafting solidarity in post-accord Colombia (Fredy Mora-Gámez) PART VI Representing: Self-governing 18. Commons-based mending ecologies (Doina Petrescu and Constantin Petcou) 19. Ri-Maflow: des-pair, resistance and re-pair in an urban industrial ecology (Marco Checchi) 20. Chilean streets: An archive against the grain of History (Cristobal Bonelli and Marisol de la Cadena) PART VII Isolating: Embodying 21. (Un)crafting ecologies: actions involving special skills at (un)making things humans with your hands (Eliana Sánchez-Aldana) 22. Cultivating Attention to Fragility: The Sensible Encounters of Maintenance (Jérôme Denis and David Pontille) 23. Technological black boxing versus ecological reparation: From encased-industrial to open-renewable wind energy (Aristotle Tympas) PART VIII Growth: Flourishing 24. Algorithmic Food Justice (Lara Houston, Sara Heitlinger, Ruth Catlow and Alex Taylor) 25. Being affected by páramo: Maps, landscape drawings, and a risky science (Alejandra Osejo and Santiago Martínez Medina) 26. Ordinary Hope (Steven J. Jackson)

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Book Synopsis'The best up-to-date, go-to book on the social and economic implications of artificial intelligence - Tyler Cowen'Rule of the Robots explores the future implications of artificial intelligence as a uniquely scalable and potentially disruptive technology.In this sequel to his prescient New York Times bestseller Rise of the Robots, Martin Ford presents us with a striking vision of the very near future. He argues that AI is a uniquely powerful technology, a kind of "electricity of intelligence" that is altering every dimension of human life, often for the better with advanced science being done by machines who can solve problems humans can not. AI has the potential to help us fight climate change or the next pandemic, but it also has a capacity for profound harm. Deep fakes-AI-generated audio or video of events that never happened-are poised to cause havoc throughout society. AI empowers authoritarian regimes like China with unprecedented mechanisms for social control. And AI can be deeply biased, learning bigoted attitudes from the data used to train algorithms and perpetuating them. Hard-hitting and thought-provoking, covering everything from self-driving cars to the history of deep learning to apps for diagnosing skin cancer, Rule of the Robots challenges our fears and preconceptions about artificial intelligence. Ford argues that AI is here to stay and the real question is not how to stop it, but how to control its negative potential and harness its power for good as AI transforms our economy, our politics, and our lives.Trade ReviewProbably the most compelling single-volume book so far on AI's advance and the opportunities and challenges associated with its multi-faceted impact on the world. Those in AI and those outside it will get a lot out of his clear-eyed and critical perspective. I highly recommend it -- James Manyika, Chairman and Director of the McKinsey Global InstituteThere is no technology more important today than AI. Martin Ford continues his tradition of clear insights and observations about this important topic in a well-researched page-turner. A delightful book! -- Erik Brynjolfsson, Director of the Stanford Digital Economy Lab and co-author of The Second Machine AgeThe best up-to-date, go-to book on the social and economic implications of artificial intelligence -- Tyler Cowen, Professor of Economics at George Mason UniversityAn incisive, balanced, and well-informed discussion of where AI stands today, how it may evolve, and the risks it poses to human society -- Stuart Russell, Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley and co-author of Artificial Intelligence: A Modern ApproachWriting about the future of robotics is a dangerous endeavor, since it illuminates every aspect of our lives with a startling, uncharted perspective. Ford navigates this challenge admirably, with an exceptional blend of depth, rigor and clarity -- Judea Pearl, winner of the A.M. Turing Award and co-author of The Book of WhyRule of the Robots is subtle and clever, a book that will challenge readers to reassess their position on AI -- Engineering And TechnologyAccording to software developer Martin Ford, artificial intelligence (AI) will probably transform society faster than electricity did, but with unpredictable effects. His well-informed study notes a 2016 forecast that within five years, radiologists would be overtaken by advances in AI. But that hasn't happened: AI cannot currently integrate key information from sources such as clinical notes. AI's future, Ford concludes, lies somewhere between the science-fictional extremes of utopian Star Trek and dystopian The Matrix -- NatureA good read and . . . a balanced perspective on both the benefits and costs of increasingly widespread use of AI -- Diane Coyle, Enlightenment Economics

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Book SynopsisIn this sequel to his prescient New York Times bestseller Rise of the Robots, Martin Ford presents us with a striking vision of the very near future. He argues that AI is a uniquely powerful technology, a kind of "electricity of intelligence" that is altering every dimension of human life, often for the better with advanced science being done by machines who can solve problems humans can not. AI has the potential to help us fight climate change or the next pandemic, but it also has a capacity for profound harm. Deep fakes-AI-generated audio or video of events that never happened-are poised to cause havoc throughout society. AI empowers authoritarian regimes like China with unprecedented mechanisms for social control. And AI can be deeply biased, learning bigoted attitudes from the data used to train algorithms and perpetuating them. Hard-hitting and thought-provoking, covering everything from self-driving cars to the history of deep learning to apps for diagnosing skin cancer, Rule of the Robots challenges our fears and preconceptions about artificial intelligence. Ford argues that AI is here to stay and the real question is not how to stop it, but how to control its negative potential and harness its power for good as AI transforms our economy, our politics, and our lives.Trade ReviewProbably the most compelling single-volume book so far on AI's advance and the opportunities and challenges associated with its multi-faceted impact on the world. Those in AI and those outside it will get a lot out of his clear-eyed and critical perspective. I highly recommend it -- James Manyika, Chairman and Director of the McKinsey Global InstituteThere is no technology more important today than AI. Martin Ford continues his tradition of clear insights and observations about this important topic in a well-researched page-turner. A delightful book! -- Erik Brynjolfsson, Director of the Stanford Digital Economy Lab and co-author of The Second Machine AgeThe best up-to-date, go-to book on the social and economic implications of artificial intelligence -- Tyler Cowen, Professor of Economics at George Mason UniversityAn incisive, balanced, and well-informed discussion of where AI stands today, how it may evolve, and the risks it poses to human society -- Stuart Russell, Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley and co-author of Artificial Intelligence: A Modern ApproachWriting about the future of robotics is a dangerous endeavor, since it illuminates every aspect of our lives with a startling, uncharted perspective. Ford navigates this challenge admirably, with an exceptional blend of depth, rigor and clarity -- Judea Pearl, winner of the A.M. Turing Award and co-author of The Book of WhyRule of the Robots is subtle and clever, a book that will challenge readers to reassess their position on AI -- Engineering And TechnologyAccording to software developer Martin Ford, artificial intelligence (AI) will probably transform society faster than electricity did, but with unpredictable effects. His well-informed study notes a 2016 forecast that within five years, radiologists would be overtaken by advances in AI. But that hasn't happened: AI cannot currently integrate key information from sources such as clinical notes. AI's future, Ford concludes, lies somewhere between the science-fictional extremes of utopian Star Trek and dystopian The Matrix -- NatureA good read and . . . a balanced perspective on both the benefits and costs of increasingly widespread use of AI -- Diane Coyle, Enlightenment Economics

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Book SynopsisIn The Future Is Analog, David Sax points out that the onset of the pandemic instantly gave us the digital universe we'd spent so long anticipating. Instant communication, online shopping, virtual everything. It didn't take long to realize how awful it was to live in this promised future. We craved real experiences, relationships, and spaces and got back to real life as quickly and often as we could.In chapters exploring work, school, religion, and more, this book asks pointed questions: Is our future inevitably digital? Can we reject the downsides of digital technology without rejecting change? Can we innovate not for the sake of productivity but for the good of our social and cultural lives? Can we build a future that serves us as humans, first and foremost?This is a manifesto for a different kind of change. We can spend our creativity and money on building new gadgets-or we can spend them on new ways to be together and experience the world, to bake bread, and climb mountains. All we need is the clarity to choose which future we want.

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Book SynopsisThe attack on the Capitol building following the 2020 election was an extraordinarily large and brazen crime. Conspiracies were formed on social media in full public view, the law-breakers paraded on national television with undisguised faces, and with outgoing President Donald Trump openly cheering them on. The basic concept of law enforcement--investigators find criminals and serve justice--quickly breaks down in the face of such an event. The system has been strained by the sheer volume of criminals and the widespread perception that what they did wasn't wrong. A mass of online tipsters--"sedition hunters"--have mobilized, simultaneously providing the FBI with valuable intelligence and creating an ethical dilemma. Who gets to serve justice? How can law enforcement still function as a pillar of civil society? As the foundations of our government are questioned, the FBI and Department of Justice are the first responders to a crisis of democracy and law that threatens to spread, and fast.In this work of extraordinary reportage, Ryan Reilly gets to know would-be revolutionaries, obsessive online sleuths, and FBI agents, and shines a light on a justice system that's straining to maintain order in our polarized country. From the moment the police barriers were breached on January 6th, 2021, Americans knew something had profoundly changed. Sedition Hunters is the fascinating, high-stakes story of what happens next.

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Book SynopsisThe Dark Mountain Project began with a manifesto published in 2009 by two English writers—Dougald Hine and Paul Kingsnorth—who felt that literature was not responding honestly to the crises of our time. In a world in which the climate is being altered by human activities; in which global ecosystems are being destroyed by the advance of industrial civilisation; and in which the dominant economic and cultural assumptions of the West are visibly crumbling, Dark Mountain asked: where are the writers and the artists? Why are the mainstream cultural forms of our society still behaving as if this were the twentieth century—or even the nineteenth? Dark Mountain’s call for writers, thinkers and artists willing to face the depth of the mess we are in has made it a gathering point for a growing international network. Rooted in place, time and nature, their work finds a home in the pages of the Dark Mountain books, with two new volumes published every year. Walking on Lava brings together the best of the first ten volumes, along with the original manifesto. This collection of essays, fiction, poetry, interviews and artwork introduces The Dark Mountain Project’s groundbreaking work to a wider audience in search of ‘the hope beyond hope, the paths which lead to the unknown world ahead of us.’Trade Review“In a world of disintegrating certainties, the vacuum left behind is terrifying. Yet the Dark Mountain Project insists on exploring this space, which the mainstream bids us ignore. For that alone it is invaluable. And when we are brave enough to open our eyes, Walking on Lava reveals that we are not alone. What new stories might we tell, together?”—Shaun Chamberlin, author of The Transition Timeline; editor of Lean Logic and Surviving the Future“The Dark Mountain Project has at last arrived in the United States with this splendidly ecological book, one to which Rachel Carson, Ed Abbey, and Aldo Leopold would have been proud to contribute. Urgently recommended!”—Lawrence Millman, author of At the End of the World“It’s wonderful that with this book an outsider can finally see all the things the Dark Mountain Project has been doing all these years. Probably won’t avert civilization’s collapse, but it’s good to have.”—Kirkpatrick Sale, author of Human Scale Revisited“In a culture killing the planet, and in a culture based on denial, I am grateful that the authors in this volume acknowledge the horrors we face. I hope that people will read this book, and armed with its important analysis, they will then act decisively to protect the planet that is our only home.”—Derrick Jensen, author of A Language Older Than Words, The Culture of Make Believe, Endgame, and many other books“This medley of entrancing, soul-enhancing, exciting stories will stir your creaturely blood from the very depths of our sainted Earth. You will feel enlivened in ways you had forgotten; you will breathe in the wildness of the world; a holy wind will heal you. You will journey to your wider Self—to Great Gaia, Mother of All. This Dark Mountain book will do all this for you, and more. When you’ve read it, its words coursing through your veins, more animal now, more alive—go and do something wholesome for the more-than-youness that you’ve discovered, and, at last, come home.”—Dr. Stephan Harding, resident ecologist, Schumacher College; author of Animate Earth“Dark Mountain’s call to uncivilisation is not about unravelling the survival structures of our society. It is something much deeper, putting new survival structures in place by calling back the soul. I hope that this anthology will thrill you on that journey.”—Alastair McIntosh, PhD, author of Spiritual Activism and Poacher’s Pilgrimage“A collection by turns magical, brave, earnest, and mournful but truthful throughout. The authors point the way down a faint but still visible trail beyond domination and back to our once and future place as humble animals in love with our world.”—Lierre Keith, author of The Vegetarian Myth; coauthor of Deep Green Resistance“We humans are in trouble, and because of us, most of our fellow species are also in trouble. All of the planet’s life-support systems are under stress or collapsing because of our unchecked appetites and swelling population. To find our way through the ruins and beyond, we need more than clever technology and magical markets. We need an alternative to the industrial mindset, which views Earth as raw material for human consumption and as a dump for our waste. We need the kind of diverse, clear-eyed, ecologically wise imagining gathered in this book. A bow of gratitude to the denizens of Dark Mountain.”—Scott Russell Sanders, author of Dancing in Dreamtime“This book changed my life. It puts into words the sense of utter hopelessness I feel about the fate of the world as we have known it. And yet, miraculously, it gives me ‘hope beyond hope’ for what lies ahead. The Dark Mountaineers are blazing new trails into, and through, the hot lava of our uncertain future.”—Eric Utne, founder of Utne Reader“Don’t read this book if you’re not willing to be shaken and unsettled. Unflinching and unafraid!”—Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature

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Book SynopsisMany of the most dynamic public companies, from Alibaba to Facebook to Visa, and the most valuable start-ups, such as Airbnb and Uber, are matchmakers that connect one group of customers with another group of customers. Economists call matchmakers multisided platforms because they provide physical or virtual platforms for multiple groups to get together. Dating sites connect people with potential matches, for example, and ride-sharing apps do the same for drivers and riders. Although matchmakers have been around for millennia, they're becoming more and more popular--and profitable--due to dramatic advances in technology, and a lot of companies that have managed to crack the code of this business model have become today's power brokers. Don't let the flashy successes fool you, though. Starting a matchmaker is one of the toughest business challenges, and almost everyone who tries to build one, fails. In Matchmakers, David Evans and Richard Schmalensee, two economists who were among the first to analyze multisided platforms and discover their principles, and who've consulted for some of the most successful platform businesses in the world, explain how matchmakers work best in practice, why they do what they do, and how entrepreneurs can improve their chances for success. Whether you're an entrepreneur, an investor, a consumer, or an executive, your future will involve more and more multisided platforms, and Matchmakers--rich with stories from platform winners and losers--is the one book you'll need in order to navigate this appealing but confusing world.Trade ReviewAs seen in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Economist. "A must-read business book for ambitious entrepreneurs ... thought-provoking insight into what's behind the exponential growth of the companies in whose footsteps we're following. It's a portal through which to view the economy of the future." -- Daily Telegraph "It's a worthwhile, and short, read for anyone who wonders about the key drivers in different types of business. Knowing what type of business a company is operating is important both for CEOs and investors." -- Forbes "The Rise of the 'Matchmakers' of the Digital Economy" -- The New York Times, DealBook "...measured and analytical..." -- The Wall Street Journal "An economist and entrepreneur and the former Dean of the MIT Sloan School plumb the historical roots and future possibilities of such business models and the economics behind them." -- Forbes, 2016 Summer Books for Creative Leaders "Matchmakers is one of the year's best strategy books... It should be read by both hipster-web designers with a full beard and smooth McKinsey consultants with sharp creases." -- Henrik Orholst, Borsen "The authors explain this ecosystem in engaging prose with ample examples of their theoretical points with practical case studies. Matchmakers introduces complex concepts in an important and expanding area of business and economic development. It is an important and provocative read." -- CHOICE, the publication of the American Library Association ADVANCE PRAISE for Matchmakers: Reed Hastings, founder and CEO, Netflix-- "Matchmakers sheds light on some of the most important businesses driving the global economy. A great read for anyone who wants to better understand how the companies behind the products and services they use every day work." Dan Schulman, President and CEO, PayPal-- "Matchmakers is an insider's look at one of the critical business models of our era--one that only looks easy because the drivers around successful multi- and two-sided networks are anything but self-evident. It's an entertaining read, yet filled with the insights essential for anyone interested in starting or scaling these complex yet powerful businesses." Lawrence H. Summers, Charles W. Eliot University Professor and President Emeritus, Harvard University; former US Secretary of the Treasury-- "More than the Internet, the sharing economy or automation platform companies and matchmaking markets are defining the new economy. Evans and Schmalensee are pioneers in developing economic theories that explain this new economy. Here they share what they've learned to the great benefit not just of economists, but also of entrepreneurs, policy makers, and consumers." Hikmet Ersek, President and CEO, Western Union-- "Entirely new business models have evolved around the platform, connecting supply and demand, service provider and customer, sender and receiver. Matchmakers captures this phenomenon--the platform ecosystem--in a way that makes this book compelling reading for anyone seeking to understand the role that platforms play in today's economy." Jean Tirole, Chairman, Toulouse School of Economics; Winner, 2014 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences-- "David Evans and Richard Schmalensee are masters at combining strategic analysis and economic theory. Matchmakers is a journey through the strategies of platform businesses, which are central to our economies. Full of stories, fun to read, stimulating, and rigorous, this terrific book is required reading, from the economics and MBA student to the entrepreneur looking at building a platform to any reader curious about how our economy evolves." Bob Solomon, former Senior Vice President, Network and Financial Solutions, Ariba, Inc.-- "Matchmakers will be mandatory for anyone building or investing in multisided platforms--in the cloud or on the ground. It's not only full of great stories like the rise of M-PESA, it's also a practical guide to getting your platform business off the ground. If the people behind Apple Pay had this book to read, maybe they would have started differently." Gary Katz, President and CEO, International Securities Exchange-- "This book provided me, as a cofounder of the International Securities Exchange, with a different lens through which to view my business and industry. This framework would have been a valuable addition to my playbook as my colleagues and I grappled with questions of pricing and building critical mass when we were planning the launch, eighteen years ago, of the first all-electronic options exchange in the United States." Cathy Baron Tamraz, Chairman and CEO, Business Wire-- "The 'matchmaker' is one of the oldest business models, but it's ever more important in today's interconnected, networked world. This deep dive into today's multisided businesses provides a clear, compelling, and entertaining road map for how net platform businesses can blast off and ignite. Bravo!" Praise for Catalyst Code: Bill Gates-- "... an important book for anyone interested in understanding how breakthrough businesses can be built in today's economy." Patrick McGovern, founder and former Chairman, International Data Group-- "Catalyst Code shows that in the Internet Age, the greatest business successes will be based on creating communities in which buyers and sellers are brought together efficiently, rather than making a new product or providing a new service." Peter S. Lynch, Vice Chairman, Fidelity Management & Research Company-- "Evans and Schmalensee reveal the inner workings of what is rapidly becoming a new model for businesses."

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Book SynopsisQuantum physics has turned our commonsense notion of reality on its head. This accessible book describes in layperson's terms the strange phenomena that exist at the quantum level--a world of tiny dimensions where nothing is absolutely predictable, where we rethink causality, and information seemingly travels faster than light. The author, a veteran physicist, uses illuminating analogies and jargon-free language to illustrate the basic principles of the subatomic world and show how they explain everything from the chemistry around us to the formation of galaxies. He also explains how scientists and engineers interact with this nebulous reality and, despite its mysteries, achieve results of great precision.Up front is a brief history of the early 20th-century "quantum revolution," focusing on some of the brilliant individuals whose contributions changed our view of the world--Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Paul Dirac, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schroedinger, and others. The work concludes with a discussion of the many amazing inventions that have resulted from quantum theory, including lasers, semiconductors, and the myriad of electronic devices that use them.Lucidly written, this book conveys the excitement of discovery while expanding the reader's appreciation for a science that explores the basis of everything we know.Trade Review""Well-written and easy to read. Quantum Fuzz is an excellent introduction for anyone reading about physics for the first time, and also a good review for physics students. Very comprehensive and enjoyable. Highly recommended.”—Barry Parker, author of The Physics of War “Quantum Fuzz is an engaging book that ventures way beyond what the title implies. As promised, Walker explains quantum mechanics to a general audience by way of analogies, a difficult task that he accomplishes smoothly. But he doesn't stop there. Astronomy, computers, physics, and some aspects of modern technology from his professional engineering experience are addressed with clear, precise explanations. As a bonus, chemistry and the periodic table have the most cogent exposition I have ever seen, especially since it is viewed from a physics standpoint. This is a welcome addition to any thoughtful person's library.”—Arthur W. Wiggins, Physics Professor Emeritus at Oakland Community College and coauthor of The Human Side of Science “Walker brings to life one of the most strange, fascinating, and beautiful descriptions of our physical world. . . . Human beings and things here on Earth are all made of atoms. Yet most people know nothing of their diffuse, fascinating symmetries, and how these forms determine much of the properties of our universe. This book is an opportunity to 'come on board and sail to new lands of understanding.'" —David Toback, author of Big Bang, Black Holes, No Math“A good introduction for the general reader to the theory and applications of quantum mechanics. It includes one of the best descriptions of the history of the discovery of quantum mechanics that I have seen.”—Fred Kuttner, PhD, coauthor of Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness “Guided by Walker's careful, clear, and comfortable writing, you will discover a new way of understanding matter, energy, and the universe as a whole.”—Alfred "Fred” B. Bortz, PhD, author, and winner of the American Institute of Physics Science Writing Award

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Book SynopsisFor readers of Sapiens and Homo Deus and viewers of The Social Dilemma, psychologist Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic tackles one of the biggest questions facing our species: Will we use artificial intelligence to improve the way we work and live, or will we allow it to alienate us?It's no secret that AI is changing the way we live, work, love, and entertain ourselves. Dating apps are using AI to pick our potential partners. Retailers are using AI to predict our behavior and desires. Rogue actors are using AI to persuade us with bots and misinformation. Companies are using AI to hire us—or not.In I, Human psychologist Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic takes readers on an enthralling and eye-opening journey across the AI landscape. Though AI has the potential to change our lives for the better, he argues, AI is also worsening our bad tendencies, making us more distracted, selfish, biased, narcissistic, entitled, predictable, and impatient.It doesn't have to be this way. Filled with fascinating insights about human behavior and our complicated relationship with technology, I, Human will help us stand out and thrive when many of our decisions are being made for us. To do so, we'll need to double down on our curiosity, adaptability, and emotional intelligence while relying on the lost virtues of empathy, humility, and self-control.This is just the beginning. As AI becomes smarter and more humanlike, our societies, our economies, and our humanity will undergo the most dramatic changes we've seen since the Industrial Revolution. Some of these changes will enhance our species. Others may dehumanize us and make us more machinelike in our interactions with people. It's up to us to adapt and determine how we want to live and work.The choice is ours.What will we decide?Trade ReviewNamed one of the best management books of 2023 by Børsen."I, Human argues compellingly that artificial intelligence is altering human intelligence—fuelling narcissism, diluting self-control, reinforcing prejudice—and reveals how human learning can still counteract the malign effects of machine learning. Tomas's easy style and dry humour belie the seriousness with which he tackles this vital issue of our time. Take note before the robots take over how you think." — City A.M."Fascinating, original and thought-provoking." — E&T magazine"The book's final chapter, How to Be Human, is headed with a quote from Maya Angelou: "You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them." This encapsulates the purpose of this unique book: to explain how AI is changing our lives, values, and ways of being—right now, never mind what this implies for the future—and to propose the means by which AI should and can enhance and enrich human experience rather than reduce it." — Developing Leaders magazine"…this is not an AI book like others. It does not try to predict the future or bamboozle readers with technological geekery. Instead, it assesses where this technology has brought us thus far and what we can do with it to retain what is most important to us as people." — Financial Times"…a shrewd, insightful take on the dangers of AI." — Publisher's WeeklyAdvance Praise for I, Human: "A compelling read about how AI is shaping us—and how we should shape it. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic examines how technology can augment our intelligence and reminds us to invest in the human skills that robots can't replace." — Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author, Think Again; host, TED podcast Re:Thinking"A must-read for anyone who has wondered how we can maintain our humanity amid the superpowerful prediction machines we've created." — Angela Duckworth, author, New York Times bestselling Grit"Techno-zealots and doomsayers dominate the debate about artificial intelligence, which is why this unique book is such a breath of fresh air. I, Human is a strikingly clear-eyed account of the fraught but fertile relationship we already have with AI—and an inspiring argument for how, in the future, it can help us maintain and enhance rather than degrade what makes us essentially human." — Oliver Burkeman, New York Times bestselling author, Four Thousand Weeks"If you want to understand how we can best thrive in a world that is rapidly changing because of AI, and feel hopeful and confident about the role you can play, you'll find this book to be both brilliant and essential. Full of insights and practical tips, I, Human will prepare you for the future by focusing your attention on the very traits that make human nature unique." — Francesca Gino, professor, Harvard Business School; author, Rebel Talent"I, Human argues compellingly that artificial intelligence is altering human intelligence—fueling narcissism, diluting self-control, reinforcing prejudice—and reveals how human learning can still counteract the malign effects of machine learning. Tomas's easy style and dry humor bely the seriousness with which he tackles this vital issue of our time. Take note before the robots take over how you think." — Octavius Black, founder and CEO, MindGym"At last, a book on AI that focuses on humans rather than machines. A powerful case for reclaiming some of our most valuable neglected virtues." — Dorie Clark, Wall Street Journal bestselling author, The Long Game; executive education faculty, Duke University Fuqua School of Business

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Book SynopsisIn this eagerly-awaited new book from the author of the best-selling Nostalgia Nerd's Retro Tech, Peter Leigh takes a fun, informative and irreverent romp through the history of more than forty pieces of personal tech, charting the successes, failures and oddities from over five decades of our obsession with gadgetry.From the Teasmade to the TomTom, mankind has been on a constant hunt for gimmicks that make life easier, faster and more entertaining, and as yesterday's 'must-haves' become today's museum pieces, there's no better time to take a nostalgic trip through tech's back catalogue.

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Book SynopsisIn the late 1960s the world was faced with impending disaster: the height of the Cold War, the end of oil, and the decline of great cities throughout the world. Out of this crisis came a new generation of thinkers, designers and engineers who hoped to build a better future, influenced by visions of geodesic domes, walking cities, and a meaningful connection with nature. In this brilliant work of cultural history, architect Douglas Murphy traces the lost archeology of the present-day through the works of thinkers and designers such as Buckminster Fuller, the ecological pioneer Stewart Brand, the Archigram architects who envisioned the Plug-In City in the '60s, as well as co-operatives in Vienna, communes in the Californian desert, and protesters on the streets of Paris. In this mind-bending account of the last avant garde, we see not just the source of our current problems but also some powerful alternative futures.Trade ReviewNo one warns you that when you get old eras that you lived through are, to the next generation, history. And it is salutory to have one of the wilder fringes of that history recounted with the acuity, sympathy and fluency Douglas Murphy brings to it. The cast is extraordinary: oddballs, philosophers, seers-and a few frauds. -- Jonathan MeadesIn Last Futures, such one-time commonplaces as three day weeks, the elimination of labour, geodesic domes, walking cities, space colonies and industrialised housing are removed from dimwitted 'where's my jetpack' nostalgia and put back into history. In so doing, Douglas Murphy performs the useful service of making clear when the ideas of the unrealised futures of the 1960s and 1970s were stupid and wasteful, and when they were exceptionally smart-serious solutions to problems we still haven't solved, and problems we seem intent on making considerably worse. Last Futures is the Silent Running to contemporary architecture's The Fountainhead. -- Owen Hatherley, author of Landscapes of CommunismA fluent, chronological narrative in which oddities from the recent past form sequences in an unfolding drama . Murphy deploys his storytelling with great effect. * Architecture Today *Murphy tells the story of this counter-revolution pithily and well . A fresh and haunting way of explaining what happened to the radical '60s and '70s as a whole, in Murphy's view quite possibly the last chance the west had of creating a decent and environmentally sustainable society. -- Andy Beckett * Guardian *Provocative and compelling. * Macleans *Murphy's chief virtue is the faculty with which he connects the dots between various, seemingly unconnected developments in architecture and theory with the ecological, financial, and military crises of an earlier era, holding a mirror onto our own anxious epoch of globalized precarity labor and anthropogenic climate change. -- Anna Khachiyan * Metropolis *Murphy outlines both some well known and some intriguingly novel suggestions for why the enthusiasm for 'omni-infrastructural' utopian frames went away.[Last Futures's] motley quality is in no way a fault of Murphy's approach, but rather a real advantage of his method as a cultural historian. A strength of Murphy's book is that he depicts both the general outlines and some of the juiciest details of these complex historical moments without distilling them into a deceptively linear chronology or a progression of mere styles. -- David Wittenberg * Los Angeles Review of Books *Last Futures is to the end of mid century experimentalism what the Zapruder film is to the death of Kennedy: a weird and gripping replay, full of period grain, each frame posing questions about whether things could have been played our differently. * Times Literary Supplement *

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Book SynopsisMusic is shaped by the science of sound. How can music - an artform - have anything to do with science? Yet there are myriad ways in which the two are intertwined, from the basics of music theory and the design of instruments to hi-fi systems and how the brain processes music.Science writer Andrew May traces the surprising connections between science and music, from the theory of sound waves to the way musicians use mathematical algorithms to create music.The most obvious impact of science on music can be seen in the way electronic technology has revolutionised how we create, record and listen to music. Technology has also provided new insights into the effects that different music has on the brain, to the extent that some algorithms can now predict our reactions with uncanny accuracy, which raises a worrying question: how long will it be before AI can create music on a par with humans?

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