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To Be A Machine

Adventures Among Cyborgs, Utopians, Hackers, and the Futurists Solving the Modest Problem of Death By Mark O'Connell "A globe-spanning investigation into the Transhumanist movement, considering the tech billionaires, scientific luminaries, and DIY body-hackers attempting to prolong, improve, and ultimately transcend the limits of human life" Publisher : New York : Doubleday, [2017] ISBN : 9780385540414, 0385540418

Four Futures

Visions of the World After Capitalism By Peter Frase It is easier to imagine the end of the world,' the theorist Fredric Jameson has remarked, 'than to imagine the end of capitalism.' 'Jacobin' Editor Peter Frase argues that technological advancements and environmental threats will inevitably push our society beyond capitalism, and 'Four Futures' imagines just how this might look. Extrapolating possible futures from current changes the world is now experiencing, and drawing upon speculative fictions to illustrate how these futures might be realized, 'Four Futures' examines communism, rentism, socialism, and exterminism-or in other words, the socialisms we may reach if a resurgent Left is successful and the barbarisms we may be consigned to if those movements fail. Publisher : London : Verso, 2016 ISBN : 9781781688137, 1781688133

Whiplash

How to Survive Our Faster Future By Joichi Ito This "brilliant and provocative" (Walter Isaacson) guide shares nine principles to adapt and survive the technological changes shaping our future from the director of the MIT Media Lab and a veteran Wired journalist. The world is more complex and volatile today than at any other time in our history. The tools of our modern existence are getting faster, cheaper, and smaller at an exponential rate, transforming every aspect of society, from business to culture and from the public sphere to our most private moments. The people who succeed will be the ones who learn to think differently. In WHIPLASH, Joi Ito and Jeff Howe distill that logic into nine organizing principles for navigating and surviving this tumultuous period: Emergence over Authority Pull over Push Compasses over Maps Risk over Safety Disobedience over Compliance Practice over Theory Diversity over Ability Resilience over Strength Systems over Objects Filled with incre...

Heart of the Machine

Our Future in A World of Artificial Emotional Intelligence By Richard Yonck "Futurist Richard Yonck argues that instilling emotions, the first, most basic, and most natural form of communication, into computers is the next leap in our centuries-old obsession with creating machines that replicate humans. But for every benefit this progress may bring to our lives, there is a possible pitfall. Emotion recognition could lead to advanced surveillance, and the same technology that can manipulate our feelings could become a method of mass control. And, as shown in movies like Her and Ex machina, our society already holds a deep-seated anxiety about what might happen if machines could actually feel and break free from our control. [This book] is an exploration of the new and inevitable ways in which mankind and technology will interact." Publisher : New York : Arcade Publishing, [2017] ISBN : 9781628727333, 1628727330

The Inevitable

Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future By Kevin Kelly An expert tech writer discusses the forces and trends that will revolutionize daily life through the upcoming technological advances of the next thirty years. Publisher : New York, New York : Viking, [2016] Copyright : ©2016 ISBN : 9780525428084, 0525428089

Machines That Think

The Future of Artificial Intelligence By Toby Walsh "A scientist who has spent a career developing Artificial Intelligence takes a realistic look at the technological challenges and assesses the likely effect of AI on the future" Publisher : Amherst, New York : Prometheus Books, 2018 ISBN : 9781633883758, 1633883752

We Are Data

Algorithms and the Making of Our Digital Selves By John Cheney-Lippold We are Data" explores what identity means in an algorithmic age: how it works, how our lives are controlled by it, and how we can resist it. Algorithms are everywhere, organizing the near limitless data that exists in our world. Derived from our every search, like, click, and purchase, algorithms determine the news we get, the ads we see, the information accessible to us and even who our friends are. These complex configurations not only form knowledge and social relationships in the digital and physical world, but also determine who we are and who we can be, both on and offline. Algorithms create and recreate us, using our data to assign and reassign our gender, race, sexuality, and citizenship status. They can recognize us as celebrities or mark us as terrorists. In this era of ubiquitous surveillance, contemporary data collection entails more than gathering information about us. Entities like Google, Faceboo...

The Robot in the Next Cubicle

What You Need to Know to Adapt and Succeed in the Automation Age By Larry Boyer It's called the Fourth Industrial Revolution--a revolution fueled by analytics and technology--that consists of data-driven smart products, services, entertainment, and new jobs. Economist and data scientist Larry Boyer lays out the wealth of exciting possibilities this revolution brings as well as the serious concerns about its disruptive impact on the lives of average Americans. Most important, he shows readers how to navigate this sea of change, pointing to strategies that will give businesses and individuals the best chance to succeed and providing a roadmap to thriving in this new economy. Boyer describes how future workers may have to think of themselves as entrepreneurs, marketing their special talents as valuable skills that machines cannot do. This will be especially important in the coming employment climate, when full-time jobs are likely to decrease and industries move toward contract-based ...

The Master Algorithm

How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World By Pedro Domingos A thought-provoking and wide-ranging exploration of machine learning and the race to build computer intelligences as flexible as our own. In the world's top research labs and universities, the race is on to invent the ultimate learning algorithm: one capable of discovering any knowledge from data, and doing anything we want, before we even ask. In The Master Algorithm , Pedro Domingos lifts the veil to give us a peek inside the learning machines that power Google, Amazon, and your smartphone. He assembles a blueprint for the future universal learner--the Master Algorithm--and discusses what it will mean for business, science, and society. If data-ism is today's philosophy, this book is its bible. Publisher : New York : Basic Books, a member of the Perseus Books Group, [2015] ISBN : 9780465065707, 0465065708

Hello World

Being Human in the Age of Algorithms By Hannah Fry By weaving in relatable, real world stories with accessible explanations of the underlying mathematics that power algorithms, Hello world helps us to determine their power, expose their limitations, and examine whether they really are improvement on the human systems they replace. Publisher : New York : W.W. Norton & Company, [2018] ISBN : 9780393634990, 039363499X

On the Future

Prospects for Humanity By Martin J. Rees "Humanity has reached a critical moment. Our world is unsettled and rapidly changing, and we face existential risks over the next century. Various outcomes--good and bad--are possible. Yet our approach to the future is characterized by short-term thinking, polarizing debates, alarmist rhetoric, and pessimism. In this short, exhilarating book, renowned scientist and bestselling author Martin Rees argues that humanity's prospects depend on our taking a very different approach to planning for tomorrow. The future of humanity is bound to the future of science and hinges on how successfully we harness technological advances to address our challenges. If we are to use science to solve our problems while avoiding its dystopian risks, we must think rationally, globally, collectively, and optimistically about the long term. Advances in biotechnology, cybertechnology, robotics, and artificial intelligence--if pursued and applied wisely--could emp...

Talk to Me

How Voice Computing Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Think By James Vlahos "A New York Times Magazine writer explores the Next Big Thing in tech--the impending revolution in voice recognition--and shows how it will upend Silicon Valley and transform how we use computers, the Web, and much more.Every decade or so brings a seismic shift in how people interact with tech, from the PC to the internet to the smartphone. James Vlahos shows that we are on the cusp of the next shift: to voice computing. Siri and Alexa are early forms of this technology, but the day is coming when we'll talk as fluently with our phones, appliances, cars, etc. as we do with any human. Vlahos explains the enormous AI challenges that voice computing presents, and unpacks its vast economic, cultural, and psychological impact. He reveals how Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and other titans are competing fiercely to create the new voice-driven interfaces. Amazon has devoted an entire secret building to ...

The Age of Spiritual Machines

By Ray Kurzweil Ray Kurzweil is the inventor of the most innovative and compelling technology of our era, an international authority on artificial intelligence, and one of our greatest living visionaries. Now he offers a framework for envisioning the twenty-first century--an age in which the marriage of human sensitivity and artificial intelligence fundamentally alters and improves the way we live. Kurzweil's prophetic blueprint for the future takes us through the advances that inexorably result in computers exceeding the memory capacity and computational ability of the human brain by the year 2020 (with human-level capabilities not far behind); in relationships with automated personalities who will be our teachers, companions, and lovers; and in information fed straight into our brains along direct neural pathways. Optimistic and challenging, thought-provoking and engaging, The Age of Spiritual Machines is the ultimate guide on our road into the next century. Publisher : [Not ide...

The Second Machine Age

Work, Progress, and Prosperity in A Time of Brilliant Technologies By Erik Brynjolfsson A pair of technology experts describe how humans will have to keep pace with machines in order to become prosperous in the future and identify strategies and policies for business and individuals to use to combine digital processing power with human ingenuity. Publisher : New York : W. W. Norton & Company, [2014] Copyright : ©2014 ISBN : 9780393239355, 0393239357

Fundamentals of Deep Learning

Designing Next-generation Machine Intelligence Algorithms By Nikhil Buduma With the reinvigoration of neural networks in the 2000s, deep learning has become an extremely active area of research, one that's paving the way for modern machine learning. In this practical book, author Nikhil Buduma provides examples and clear explanations to guide you through major concepts of this complicated field. Companies such as Google, Microsoft, and Facebook are actively growing in-house deep-learning teams. For the rest of us, however, deep learning is still a pretty complex and difficult subject to grasp. If you're familiar with Python, and have a background in calculus, along with a basic understanding of machine learning, this book will get you started. Examine the foundations of machine learning and neural networks Learn how to train feed-forward neural networks Use TensorFlow to implement your first neural network Manage problems that arise as you begin to make networks deeper Build ne...

AI Superpowers

China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order By Kai-Fu Lee Dr. Kai-Fu Lee--one of the world's most respected experts on AI and China--reveals that China has suddenly caught up to the US at an astonishingly rapid and unexpected pace. In AI Superpowers , Kai-fu Lee argues powerfully that because of these unprecedented developments in AI, dramatic changes will be happening much sooner than many of us expected. Indeed, as the US-Sino AI competition begins to heat up, Lee urges the US and China to both accept and to embrace the great responsibilities that come with significant technological power. Most experts already say that AI will have a devastating impact on blue-collar jobs. But Lee predicts that Chinese and American AI will have a strong impact on white-collar jobs as well. Is universal basic income the solution? In Lee's opinion, probably not. But he provides a clear description of which jobs will be affected and how soon, which jobs can be enhanced with AI, and most impor...

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism

The Fight for A Human Future at the New Frontier of Power By Shoshana Zuboff "Zuboff tackles the social, political, business, personal, and technological meaning of "surveillance capitalism" as an unprecedented new market form. It is not simply about tracking us and selling ads, it is the business model for an ominous new marketplace that aims at nothing less than predicting and modifying our everyday behavior--where we go, what we do, what we say, how we feel, who we're with. The consequences of surveillance capitalism for us as individuals and as a society vividly come to life in [this] pathbreaking analysis of power. The threat has shifted from a totalitarian "big brother" state to a universal global architecture of automatic sensors and smart capabilities: A "big other" that imposes a fundamentally new form of power and unprecedented concentrations of knowledge in private companies--free from democratic oversight and control" Publisher : ...

Originals

How Non-conformists Move the World By Adam M. Grant "Reading Originals made me feel like I was seated across from Adam Grant at a dinner party, as one of my favorite thinkers thrilled me with his insights and his wonderfully new take on the world." --Malcolm Gladwell, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Outliers and The Tipping Point "Originals is one of the most important and captivating books I have ever read, full of surprising and powerful ideas. It will not only change the way you see the world; it might just change the way you live your life. And it could very well inspire you to change your world." --Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook and #1 New York Times bestselling author of Lean In The New York Times bestselling author of Give and Take examines how people can champion new ideas--and how leaders can encourage originality in their organizations With Give and Take, Adam Grant not only introduced a landmark new paradigm for success but a...

Superminds

The Surprising Power of People and Computers Thinking Together By Thomas W. Malone "If you're like most people, you probably believe that humans are the most intelligent animals on our planet. But there's another kind of entity that can be far smarter: groups of people. In this groundbreaking book, Thomas Malone, the founding director of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence, shows how groups of people working together in superminds--like hierarchies, markets, democracies, and communities--have been responsible for almost all human achievements in business, government, science, and beyond. And these collectively intelligent human groups are about to get much smarter. Using dozens of striking examples and case studies, Malone shows how computers can help create more intelligent superminds simply by connecting humans to one another in a variety of rich, new ways. And although it will probably happen more gradually than many people expect, artificially intelligent comput...

The Future of the Professions

How Technology Will Transform the Work of Human Experts By Richard Susskind, Daniel Susskind This book predicts the decline of today's professions and describes the people and systems that will replace them. In an Internet society, according to Richard Susskind and Daniel Susskind, we will neither need nor want doctors, teachers, accountants, architects, the clergy, consultants, lawyers, and many others, to work as they did in the 20th century. The Future of the Professions explains how 'increasingly capable systems' - from telepresence to artificial intelligence - will bring fundamental change in the way that the 'practical expertise' of specialists is made available in society. The authors challenge the 'grand bargain' - the arrangement that grants various monopolies to today's professionals. They argue that our current professions are antiquated, opaque and no longer affordable, and that the expertise of the best is enjoyed only by a few. In their pla...