Impact of science and technology on society Books

Book SynopsisAMAZON BEST BOOKS OF 2019 PICKFORTUNE WRITERS AND EDITORS'' RECOMMENDED BOOKS OF 2019 PICKUser Friendly is a tour de force, an engrossing fusion of scholarly research, professional experience and revelations from intrepid firsthand reporting.EDWARD TENNER, The New York Times Book ReviewIn User Friendly, Cliff Kuang and Robert Fabricant reveal the untold story of a paradigm that quietly rules our modern lives: the assumption that machines should anticipate what we need. Spanning over a century of sweeping changes, from women's rights to the Great Depression to World War II to the rise of the digital era, this book unpacks the ways in which the world has beenand continues to beremade according to the principles of the once-obscure discipline of user-experience design.In this essential text, Kuang and Fabricant map the hidden rules of the designed world and shed light on how those rules have cau

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Book SynopsisThe author of Straw Dogs, famous for his provocative critiques of scientific hubris and the delusions of progress and humanism, turns his attention to catsand what they reveal about humans'' torturous relationship to the world and to themselves. The history of philosophy has been a predictably tragic or comical succession of palliatives for human disquiet. Thinkers from Spinoza to Berdyaev have pursued the perennial questions of how to be happy, how to be good, how to be loved, and how to live in a world of change and loss. But perhaps we can learn more from cats--the animal that has most captured our imagination--than from the great thinkers of the world. In Feline Philosophy, the philosopher John Gray discovers in cats a way of living that is unburdened by anxiety and self-consciousness, showing how they embody answers to the big questions of love and attachment, mortality, morality, and the Self: Montaigne''s house cat, whose un-examine

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Book SynopsisJames Robert Brown is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto, Canada. His previous publications include The Rational and the Social (Routledge, 1989), Smoke and Mirrors: How ScienceReflects Reality (Routledge, 1994), Philosophy of Mathematics (Routledge, Second Edition 2008) and The Laboratory of the Mind (Routledge, Second Edition 2009), Who Rules in Science: A Guide to the Wars (Harvard 2001), and Platonism, Naturalism, and Mathematical Knowledge (Routledge 2011).Trade ReviewThis book delivers twice on its title: it offers a comprehensive discussion of key thinkers in philosophy of science of the past 150 years and the authors are a dozen of their most distinguished and innovative successors at work today. The result shows a vibrant discipline in which each generation reflects on—and moves beyond—the classic debates. An insightful and inspiring survey of philosophy of science, its history, and its progress. -- James W. McAllister, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Leiden, The Netherlands and Editor of International Studies in the Philosophy of ScienceTable of Contents1. Introduction James Robert Brown; 2. Experience and Necessity: Whewell and Mill Laura Snyder; 3. Conventionalism: Poincare, Duhem, Reichenbach; 4. The Vienna Circle: Carnap and Neurath Alan Richardson; 5. Logical Empiricism: Hempel and Quine Martin Curd; 6. Induction and Falsification: Popper Steve Fuller; 7. Historical Approaches: Kuhn, Lakatos and Feyerabend Martin Carrier; 8. Sociology of Science: Bloor, Collins, Latour Martin Kusch; 9. Realism: Putnam and van Fraassen Stathis Psillos; 10. Beyond Theories: Hacking and Cartwright; 11. Feminist Critiques: Harding and Longino Janet Kourany; 12. Current Trends James Robert Brown; Further Reading; Index.

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Book SynopsisA new cultural icon strode the world stage at the turn of the twenty-first century: the celebrity scientist, as comfortable in Vanity Fair and Vogue as Smithsonian. Declan Fahy profiles eight of these eloquent, controversial, and compelling sellers of science to investigate how they achieved celebrity in the United States and internationallyand explores how their ideas influence our understanding of the world. Fahy traces the career trajectories of Richard Dawkins, Stephen Hawking, Steven Pinker, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Brian Greene, Stephen Jay Gould, Susan Greenfield, and James Lovelock. He demonstrates how each scientist embraced the power of promotion and popularization to stimulate thinking, impact policy, influence research, drive controversies, and mobilize social movements. He also considers critical claims that they speak beyond their expertise and for personal gain. The result is a fascinating look into how celebrity scientists help determine what it means to be human, the naturTrade ReviewA former reporter, Fahy understands how electronic media shape public perception of all aspects of society. This includes science, for which media have created a new breed of scientist, ‘celebrity scientists’ who are in the public eye by dint of popular books, television, and/or newsprint. These individuals are the scientific world’s version of movie stars and star athletes. Fahy considers eight well-known contemporary scientists: Stephen Hawking, who inherited Einstein’s mantle; evolutionist Richard Dawkins, who carries the banner of militant atheism; James Lovelock, the maverick outsider who proposed the Gaia hypothesis; and Neil deGrasse Tyson, who has replaced Carl Sagan as television’s go-to science expert. Others include cosmologist Brian Greene; the Baroness Susan Greenfield, who studies Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease; the late evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould, and psychologist Stephen Pinker. This interesting book covers the work and life of each in some depth, and extensive chapter notes direct those who wish to delve more deeply into their lives. Summing Up: Recommended. All readers. * CHOICE *When thinking of celebrity culture, science may not be the first thing that comes to mind. But science and fame go hand in hand in School of Communication professor Declan Fahy’s new book The New Celebrity Scientists: Out of the Lab and into the Limelight. . . .The New Celebrity Scientists works to debunk the myth that science is simply meant to stay in laboratories or for the elite. . . .Fahy delves into the world of science through both a formal and personal lens, bringing the contemporary figures that are driving scientific discussion into the limelight. * The Eagle *The result of The New Celebrity Scientists is a in-depth look into how celebrity scientists help determine what it means to be human, the nature of reality, and how to prepare for society's uncertain future. * Physics.org *Very timely and well written…. I recommend this book to anyone interested not only in science and its protagonists or communication studies but also in a field that has been little considered but can provide us with many insights into today’s culture: the sociology of science. * Polymath: An Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences Journal *[The New Celebrity Scientists: Out of the Lab and into the Limelight] is a source of authority that influences public policy, public opinion and even the scientific life. (Translated from the original French) * Communication *Relax in your favorite chair and lose yourself in this absorbing, critical examination of the best-selling scientists that we love, admire, and sometimes hate. Fahy's genius book will challenge your strongest assumptions and change the way you think about science, celebrity, and society. -- Matthew Nisbet, Northeastern UniversityDeclan Fahy tells an engaging, informed story about how leading scientists evolved, scrabbled, and maneuvered–under the fierce glare of post-1960’s mass media–to become something new to science: big-time celebrities. -- Joshua Brown, University of VermontIn The New Celebrity Scientists, Declan Fahy delves into the complex, captivating world of science by profiling the people who have helped popularize it. His vivid account follows the rise of several key scientific figures of the 20th and 21st centuries—and the consequences of their fame within the scientific community and society at large. Clear, organized, and rich in narrative detail, this book is well-suited for audiences both inside and outside the classroom. -- Michael A. Cacciatore, University of GeorgiaAt a time when science struggles to grow its share-of-voice in American culture and politics, Fahy provides an evocative look at some of our most visible scientific emissaries. His thoughtful analysis takes us on a journey that demystifies these individuals, laying bare their motivations, foibles, and contributions to science in public culture. -- Anthony Dudo, The University of Texas at AustinScientific research is often marginalized in modern culture, but a handful of scientists have found a path around that tendency. Fahy shows how, why, and to what effect certain recent scientists have consciously used the tools of today’s celebrity culture to make themselves—and thus science—active participants in public discussion. They make science central to modern culture…and sometimes make culture central to science. -- Bruce V. Lewenstein, Cornell UniversityTable of ContentsAcknowledgments 1—A Brief History of Scientific Celebrity 2—The Paradoxical Fame of Stephen Hawking 3—Richard Dawkins’s Image Problem 4—Steven Pinker’s Academic Stardom 5—The Political Celebrity of Stephen Jay Gould 6—Fame and the Female Scientist—Susan Greenfield 7—The Reluctant Fame of James Lovelock 8—The Charming Stardom of Brian Greene 9—Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Star Quality 10—A New Scientific Elite Notes Index About the Author

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Book SynopsisA collection of essays investigating key historical and scientific questions relating to the concept of natural purpose in Kant's philosophy of biology. Understanding Purpose is an exploration of the central concept of natural purpose [Naturzweck] in Kant's philosophy of biology. Kant's work in this area is marked by a strong teleological concern: living organisms, in his view, are qualitatively different from mechanistic devices, and as a result they cannot be understood by means of the same principles. At the same time, Kant's own use of the concept of purpose does not presuppose any theological commitments, and is merely "regulative"; that is, it is employed as a heuristic device. The contributors to this volume also investigate the following key historical questions relating to Kant's philosophy of biology: How does it relate to European work in the life sciences that was done before Kant arrived on the scene? How did Kant's unique approach to the philosophy of biology in turn influence later work in this area? The issues explored in this volume are as pertinent to the history of philosophy as they are to the history of science -- it is precisely the blurred boundaries between these two disciplines that allows for new perspectives on Kantianism and early nineteenth-century German biology to emerge. Contributors: Jean-Claude Dupont, Mark Fisher, Philippe Huneman, Robert J. Richards, Phillip R. Sloan, Stéphane Schmitt, and John Zammito. Philippe Huneman is researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique Unit of the Université Paris.Table of ContentsPre-Kantian Revival of Epigenesis: Caspar Friedrich Wolff's De formatione intestinorum (1768-69) - Jean-Claude Dupont Kant's Persistent Ambivalence toward Epigenesis, 1764-90 - John H. Zammito Reflexive Judgment and Wolffian Embryology: Kant's Shift between the First and the Third Critiques - Philippe Huneman Kant's Explanatory Natural History: Generation and Classification of Organisms in Kant's Natural Philosophy - Mark Fisher Succession of Functions and Classifications in Post-Kantian Naturphilosophie around 1800 - Stéphane Schmitt Goethe's Use of Kant in the Erotics of Nature - Robert J. Richards Kant and British Bioscience - Phillip R. Sloan

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Book SynopsisVirilio and Lotringer revisit their prescient book on the invisible war waged by technology against humanity since World War II.In June 2007, Paul Virilio and Sylvère Lotringer met in La Rochelle, France to reconsider the premises they developed twenty-five years before in their frighteningly prescient classic, Pure War. Pure War described the invisible war waged by technology against humanity, and the lack of any real distinction since World War II between war and peace. Speaking with Lotringer in 1982, Virilio noted the “accidents” that inevitably arise with every technological development: from car crashes to nuclear spillage, to the extermination of space and the derealization of time wrought by instant communication. In this new and updated edition, Virilio and Lotringer consider how the omnipresent threat of the “accident”—both military and economic—has escalated. With the fall of the Soviet bloc, the balance of power between East and West based on nuclear deterrence has given way to a more diffuse multi-polar nuclear threat. Moreover, as the speed of communication has increased exponentially, “local” accidents—like the collapse of the Asian markets in the late 1980s—escalate, with the speed of contagion, into global events instantaneously. “Globalization,” Virilio argues, is the planet''s ultimate accident.Paul Virilio was born in Paris in 1932 to an immigrant Italian family. Trained as an urban planner, he became the director of the École Speciale d''Architecture in the wake of the 1968 rebellion. He has published twenty-five books, including Pure War (1988) (his first in English) and The Accident of Art (2005), both with Sylvère Lotringer and published by Semiotext(e). Sylvère Lotringer, general editor of Semiotext(e), lives in New York and Baja California. He is the author of Overexposed: Perverting Perversions (Semiotext(e), 2007) and other books.

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Book SynopsisHow did human beings acquire imaginations that can conjure up untrue possibilities? How did the Universe become self-aware? In The Runes of Evolution, Simon Conway Morris revitalizes the study of evolution from the perspective of convergence, providing us with compelling new evidence to support the mounting scientific view that the history of life is far more predictable than once thought. A leading evolutionary biologist at the University of Cambridge, Conway Morris came into international prominence for his work on the Cambrian explosion (especially fossils of the Burgess Shale) and evolutionary convergence, which is the process whereby organisms not closely related (not monophyletic), independently evolve similar traits as a result of having to adapt to similar environments or ecological niches. In The Runes of Evolution, he illustrates how the ubiquity of convergence hints at an underlying framework whereby many outcomes, not least brains and intelligence, are virtually guaranteed on any Earth-like planet. Conway Morris also emphasizes how much of the complexity of advanced biological systems is inherent in microbial forms. By casting a wider net, The Runes of Evolution explores many neglected evolutionary questions. Some are remarkably general. Why, for example, are convergences such as parasitism, carnivory, and nitrogen fixation in plants concentrated in particular taxonomic hot spots? Why do certain groups have a particular propensity to evolve toward particular states? Some questions lead to unexpected evolutionary insights: If bees sleep (as they do), do they dream? Why is that insect copulating with an orchid? Why have sponges evolved a system of fiber optics? What do mantis shrimps and submarines have in common? If dinosaurs had not gone extinct what would have happened next? Will a saber-toothed cat ever re-evolve? Cona Morris observes: “Even amongst the mammals, let alone the entire tree of life, humans represent one minute twig of a vast (and largely fossilized) arborescence. Every living species is a linear descendant of an immense string of now-vanished ancestors, but evolution itself is the very reverse of linear. Rather it is endlessly exploratory, probing the vast spaces of biological hyperspace. Indeed this book is a celebration of how our world is (and was) populated by a riot of forms, a coruscating tapestry of life.” The Runes of Evolution is the most definitive synthesis of evolutionary convergence to be published to date.Trade Review"The runes of evolution spell out a surprising message: Some evolutionary outcomes are virtually inevitable. Or, so goes the argument of Cambridge palaeontologist Simon Conway Morris, resting on two key premises: Evolution repeats itself in unexpected ways: Very different lineages evolve to have similar traits. Conway Morris calls this 'convergence.' Precursors of complex traits, such as a nervous system, are found in much simpler organisms. Conway Morris calls this 'evolutionary inherency.' The premises are supported with a wealth of data—thousands of references across the book’s 27 chapters. The intriguing tale is told by way of a journey over many different areas in which we find convergence and inherency, with touches of humour along the way." —Zachary Ardern, BioLogos“Conway Morris’s exploration of the phenomenon of convergence in biological evolution is rife with implications for Christian theology. It lends credence to a Christian view of God’s providential action in history, and it supports an ecological view of the interdependence of all things in God’s creation. It also fits with a scriptural account of a story-shaped world.” —Ian Curran, Christian Century "This is a very good book. The author is most effective when presenting his evidence as both glaringly obvious and unfairly maligned. Not everyone will like the volume’s familiar tone, but the overall excellence of the writing is hard to deny. Many of the book’s grandest ideas were already covered in his previous publications, but The Runes of Evolution is nevertheless Conway Morris’ most comprehensive statement on convergence to date, and is thus well worth reading." —Abraham H. Gibson, Quarterly Review of Biology (September 2017)This book was presumably written by Morris more for fellow natural scientists than for philosophers and theologians, but in each case so as to prove that his hypothesis of ongoing convergence in evolution is not a series of fortuitous coinci-dences but empirical evidence of established patterns or in-built mechanisms within the evolutionary process. Three hundred pages of text with double columns of print on each page and 150 pages of endnotes make that clear. Names of different species, genera, families, orders, classes, and so on turn up on virtually every page so that the nonprofessional reader ends up hunting for summary statements by Morris at the end of each major subdivision within the 26 chapters. Yet despite its obvious density and degree of detail for the ordinary reader, the implications of this book for philosophical/theological understanding of the God–world relationship and for the classic distinction between the natural and the supernatural within creation are in my judgment very significant. —Joseph A. Bracken, SJ, Xavier University, Cincinnati

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Book Synopsis Does science have all the answers? Can it even deal with abstract reasoning beyond the world we experience? How can we ensure that the physical world is sufficiently ordered to be intelligible to humans? How can mathematics, a product of human minds, unlock the secrets of the physical universe? Should all such questions be considered inadmissible if science cannot settle them? Metaphysics has traditionally been understood as reasoning beyond the reach of science, sometimes even claiming realities beyond its grasp. Because of this, metaphysics is often contemptuously dismissed by scientists and philosophers who wish to remain within the bounds of what can be scientifically proven. Yet scientists at the frontiers of physics unwittingly engage in metaphysics, as they are now happy to contemplate whole universes that are, in principle, beyond human reach. Roger Trigg challenges those who deny that science needs philosophical assumptions. Trigg claims that the foundations of science themselves have to lie beyond science. It takes reasoning apart from experience to discover what is not yet known and this metaphysical reasoning to imagine realities beyond what can be accessed. “In Beyond Matter, Roger Trigg advances a powerful, persuasive, fair-minded argument that the sciences require a philosophical, metaphysical foundation. This is a brilliant book for newcomers to the philosophy of science and experts alike.” —Charles Taliaferro, professor of philosophy, St. Olaf College Trade Review“In this important book, the philosopher Roger Trigg sets out to honour the sciences by not letting them be shouldered with burdens they cannot bear, such as being the arbiter of all truth. Trigg opposes scientism, arguing that we cannot ‘arbitrarily’ dismiss ‘swathes of human reasoning and experience,’ reflected in disciplines such as literature or theology, simply on the grounds that they are not physics.” —Andrew Davison, Times’ Literary Supplement “Trigg is an eminent philosopher and now Senior Research Fellow at the Ian Ramsey Center at Oxford. If you’re concerned about the ‘science only’ approach . . . this one is a helpful corrective.” —Jim Stimp, BioLogos “This book, for newcomers to the field of philosophy of science and those already immersed in the debates, is superb.” —CHOICE “Thoughtful and well-reasoned. . . . Beyond Matter has the potential to transcend academia, thanks to its friendly tone and willingness to address atheism in a noncombative way—a rarity in works along the science-philosophy divide. In an age when belief and research seem pitted against one another, this book is a welcome window of bipartisan sanity. Ideal for researchers and thinkers, but also a good pick for interested armchair philosophers.” —Anna Call, Foreword Reviews “As always, Trigg’s writing is clear, and his argumentation is easy to comprehend. He introduces several philosophical, scientific debates without getting too entangled in details.” —Lari Launonen, ESSSAT News and ReviewsTable of Contents Preface / ix Chapter 1: Is Science the Sole Authority? / 3 Chapter 2: Science and Reality / 25 Chapter 3: World and Mind / 49 Chapter 4: Is the World Intelligible? / 73 Chapter 5: The Unity of Science / 101 Chapter 6: The Success of Science / 127 Notes / 149 Index / 159

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Book SynopsisThe title of this timely and thought-provoking book, a French bestseller, refers to schoolgirls sending text messages to their friends on their smart phones. Michel Serres, one of France's most important living intellectuals, uses this image to get at something far broader: that humans are formed and shaped by technologies, and that with the advent of computers, smart phones, and the Internet, a new human is being born. These new humans beings are our children—thumbelina (petite poucette) and tom thumb (petit poucet)—but technologies have been changing so fast that parents scarcely know their children. Serres documents this cultural revolution, arguing that there have been several similar revolutions in the past: from oral cultures to cultures focused on reading and writing; the advent of the printing press; and now the complex changes brought about by the new information technologies—changes that are taking place at an accelerated pace and that affect us all.Trade ReviewHere is the characteristic voice of late Serres – by turns searching, mischievous, joyous and enraged. Short, but drawing together arguments that Serres has been developing over five decades, Thumbelina is a visionary fable that calls for a new space of open, inventive thought to match the transformations in our bodies, our technologies and our forms of knowledge and social organisation. -- Steven Connor, Professor of English, University of CambridgeTable of ContentsTranslator's Introduction / Part I: Thumbelina / 1. Novelties / 2. From the Body to Knowledge / 3. The Individual / 4. What to Transmit? To Whom to Transmit It? How to Transmit It? / 5. Envoi / Part II: School / 1. Thumbelina's Head / 2. The Hard and the Soft / 3. The Space of the Page / 4. New Technologies / 5. A Short History / 6. Thumbelina Meditates / 7. The Voice / 8. Supply and Demand / 9. Children Transfixed / 10. The Liberation of Bodies / 11. Mobility: Conductor and Passenger / 12. The Troubadour of Knowledge / 13. The Disparate Against Classification / 14. The Abstract Concept / Part III: Society / 1. in Praise of Reciprocal Grading / 2. In Praise of Humphrey Potter / 3. The Death of Work / 4. In Praise of the Hospital / 5. In Praise of Human Voices / 6. In Praise of Networks / 7. The Reversal of the Presumption of Incompetence / 8. In Praise of Marquetry / 9. In Praise of the Third Support / 10. In Praise of the Pseudonym / 11. The Algorithmic and the Procedural / 12. Emergence / 13. In Praise of the Code / 14. In Praise of the Passport / 15. The Image of Society Today / Index

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Book SynopsisThe Future of Social Epistemology: A Collective Vision sets an agenda for exploring the future of what we – human beings reimagining our selves and our society – want, need and ought to know. The book examines, concretely, practically and speculatively, key ideas such as the public conduct of philosophy, models for extending and distributing knowledge, the interplay among individuals and groups, risk taking and the welfare state, and envisioning people and societies remade through the breakneck pace of scientific and technological change. An international team of contributors offers a ‘collective vision’, one that speaks to what they see unfolding and how to plan and conduct the dialogue and work leading to a knowable and desirable world. The book describes and advances an intellectual agenda for the future of social epistemology.Trade ReviewThis collection of twenty-five original essays from an international group of scholars proposes various possible avenues of development for the emerging study of social epistemology. As much a shared agenda or vision statement as it is a series of discussions that take stock of where social epistemology is now, the essays cover topics such as how to extend and distribute knowledge, the public conduct of philosophy, and how the social study of knowledge may be affected by scientific and technological change. The contributions collectively provide a practical guide to the student of social epistemology…. * Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal *As a new interdisciplinary area of knowledge production and dissemination, Social Epistemology has found its own voice and international disciples. This volume brings together not only a variety of perspectives and practices, but also a self-reflexive moment that looks at the present condition of the field to envision its future. A must read for the novice and the curious. -- Raphael Sassower, Professor and Chair of Philosophy, University of ColoradoTaking stock and simultaneously exploring new perspectives, this is a bold and timely addition to the existing literature. New voices join established scholars in a collaborative effort to challenge disciplinary boundaries; the result is a vibrant and thought-provoking collection of papers – as much a contribution to the social study of knowledge as it is an experiment with doing social epistemology. -- Axel Gelfert, Associate Professor of Philosophy, National University of SingaporeTable of ContentsIntroduction, James H. Collier / Part I: Conducting Social Epistemology / 1. How Can We Collectivize a Set of Visions about Social Epistemology?, Fred D’Agostino / 2. A Comic Moment for Social Epistemology, Joan Leach / 3. Knowing Humanity in the Social World: A Social Epistemology Collective Vision?, Francis Remedios / 4. A Social Epistemology for Scientific Excellence, David Budtz Pedersen / 5. From Social Epistemology to Reflexive Sociology, Inanna Hamati-Ataya and Stephen Norrie / 6. The Politics of Social Epistemology, Susan Dieleman, María G. Navarro and Elisabeth Simbürger / Part II: Extending Conceptions of Knowing / 7. Metaphor and Social Epistemology, Martin Evenden / 8. Memetics vs. Human Extension: Round Two, Gregory Sandstrom / 9. A ‘Dialectical Moment’: Desire and the Commodity of Knowledge, Patrick J. Reider / 10. Navigating the Dialectics of Objectivity, Guy Axtell / 11. Epistemic Burdens and the Value of Ignorance, Phil Olson / 12. Freeing Knowledge: The Future of Critical Knowledge Production in the New Age of Corporate Universities and the Renegade Generation of Researchers, Adam Riggio / Part III: Regarding the Individual and the Collective / 13. Are You Thinking What We’re Thinking? Eric Kerr / 14. Disagreement and the Ethics of Belief, Jonathan Matheson / 15. Doxastic Involuntarism, Attentional Voluntarism, and Social Epistemology, Mark Douglas West / 16. Empirical Social Epistemology: Addressing the Normativity of Social Forces, Miika Vähämaa / 17. On Feminist Epistemology: The Fallibility of Gendered Science, Diana Rishani / 18. The Cost of Being Known: Economics, Science Communication and Epistemic Justice, Fabien Medvecky / 19. Social Epistemology, Dialectics and Horizontal Normativity: An Introduction to the Theory of Natural Authority, Pedro Saez Williams / Part IV: Envisioning our Human Future / 20. Visioneering Our Future, Laura Cabrera, William Davis and Melissa Orozco / 21. Dreaming the Future: What it Means to be Human, Emma Craddock / 22. Human Enhancement: Visual Representation and the Production of Knowledge, Victoria Peake / 23. Is Transhumanism Gendered? The Road from Haraway, Steve Fuller and Veronika Lipinska / 24. Beyond Black and Green: Children Visioneering the Future, Emilie Whitaker / 25. Prolegomena for a Theory of Justice for a Proactionary Age, Steve Fuller / Epilogue / Notes on Contributors / Index

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Book SynopsisArtificial intelligence is everywhere-powering news feeds, curating search results and invisibly steering our lives. We talk to it and, increasingly, it talks back. And sometimes its answers seem eerily smart.... Until they don''t.Billions of dollars have been poured into AI yet it keeps surprising us with its epic fails-confidently wrong chatbots, inadvertently racist photo apps, well-meaning autonomous cars that fail to recognize traffic cones.Industry insider Emmanuel Maggiori cuts through the hype, revealing the deceptively simple mechanisms behind AI''s impressive results-and its spectacular blunders.Learn the dark secret of the AI industry-how unreasonable expectations, shady practices and outright lying have inflated a bubble of monumental proportions.Read Smart Until It''s Dumb to discover how AI really works, why it''s not always so smart, and why the AI bubble is about to burst.***Emmanuel Maggiori, PhD, is a 10-year AI industry insider, specialized in machine learning and scientific computing. He helps companies build complex software. He has developed AI for a wide variety of applications, from extracting objects from satellite images to packaging holiday deals for millions of travelers every day.

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