Showing titles in History & Culture

On the 40th anniversary of Neil Postman's prophetic book Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985), Scrolling Ourselves to Death gathers today's most incisive writers to think critically about the shaping power of contemporary technology. This book explores Postman's insights, connects them to the challenges facing Christians today, and turns difficult challenges into life-giving opportunities for the church. Stepping back from their screens, listeners will be equipped to live faithfully, and grow spiritually, in a "scrolling ourselves to death" world.

Columbia Business School professor Sandra Matz reveals in fascinating detail how big data offers insights into the most intimate aspects of our psyches and how these insights empower an external influence over the choices we make. This can be creepy, manipulative, and downright harmful, with scandals like that of British consulting firm Cambridge Analytica being merely the tip of the iceberg.

In Against the Machine, “furiously gifted” (The Washington Post) novelist, poet, and essayist Paul Kingsnorth presents a wholly original—and terrifying—account of the technological-cultural matrix enveloping all of us. With insight into the spiritual and economic roots of techno-capitalism, Kingsnorth reveals how the Machine, in the name of progress, has choked Western civilization, is destroying the Earth itself, and is reshaping us in its image.

Merchants of Doubt has been praised—and attacked—around the world, for reasons easy to understand. This book tells, with “brutal clarity” (Huffington Post), the disquieting story of how a loose-knit group of high-level scientists and scientific advisers, with deep connections in politics and industry, ran effective campaigns to mislead the public and deny well-established scientific knowledge over four decades.

Maria Ressa has spent decades speaking truth to power. But her work tracking disinformation networks seeded by her own government, spreading lies to its own citizens laced with anger and hate, has landed her in trouble with the most powerful man in the country: President Duterte. Now, hounded by the state, she has 10 arrest warrants against her name, and a potential 100+ years behind bars to prepare for - while she stands trial for speaking the truth.

James Lovelock, creator of the Gaia hypothesis and the greatest environmental thinker of our time, has produced an astounding new theory about future of life on Earth. He argues that the anthropocene - the age in which humans acquired planetary-scale technologies - is, after 300 years, coming to an end. A new age - the novacene - has already begun.

From the Pulitzer Prize winner and number one international best-selling author of The World Is Flat, an essential and entertaining field guide to thriving in the 21st century. We all sense it - something big is going on. You feel it in your workplace. You feel it when you talk to your children. You can't miss it when you read the newspapers or watch the news. Our lives are speeding up - and it is dizzying.

En Nexus, Harari contempla a la humanidad desde la amplia perspectiva de la historia para analizar cómo las redes de información han hecho y deshecho nuestro mundo. Durante los últimos 100.000 años, los sapiens hemos acumulado un enorme poder. Pero, a pesar de todos los descubrimientos, inventos y conquistas, ahora nos enfrentamos a una crisis existencial: el mundo está al borde del colapso ecológico, abunda la desinformación y nos precipitamos hacia la era de la I.A. Con todo el camino andando, ¿por qué somos una especie autodestructiva?

Are you curious about how AI is transforming the world around you? The Complete Beginner's Guide to AI breaks down complex topics into easy-to-understand language. This book is designed to make the fascinating world of AI accessible and relatable to everyone, regardless of your technical expertise. Learn what AI is and how it has evolved with terms and concepts explained in plain, everyday language. Discover the AI technologies already woven into your daily life, sometimes in unexpected places. Explore AI's profound impact on various industries.

On balance, will AI help humanity or harm it? AI could revolutionize science, medicine, and technology, and deliver us a world of abundance and better health. Or it could be a disaster, leading to the downfall of democracy, or even our extinction. In Taming Silicon Valley, Gary Marcus, one of the most trusted voices in AI, explains that we still have a choice. And that the decisions we make now about AI will shape our next century.

The Complete Guide to AI in Education is a comprehensive resource for anyone interested in the transformative role of artificial intelligence in learning. Whether you're an educator, school administrator, student, or parent, this guide provides the knowledge and tools needed to navigate and leverage AI effectively in education. AI is reshaping education, offering powerful solutions to personalize learning, automate administrative tasks, and foster creativity. Yet it also brings challenges: concerns about academic integrity, learning gaps, and equitable access.

Have you ever actually engaged with someone’s lame dance video on Instagram? Probably not, if you’re being honest. Gimmicks just don’t work, but the pressure of having an online presence can make people do weird things. Eventually, you have to call bullsh*t. The good news is that when you cut out excuses and ditch the self-sabotaging performances, you can learn to be a real human on the internet.

Ignition! is the story of the search for a rocket propellant which could be trusted to take man into space. This search was a hazardous enterprise carried out by rival labs who worked against the known laws of nature, with no guarantee of success or safety. John Drury Clark writes with irreverent and eyewitness immediacy about the development of the explosive fuels strong enough to negate the relentless restraints of gravity. The resulting volume is as much a memoir as a work of history, sharing a behind-the-scenes view of an enterprise that eventually took men to the moon.

Harness the full potential of generative AI to improve your productivity, transform your career, and boost your creativity! Brought to you by the Amazon bestselling author of Essentials of AI for Beginners, this practical, engaging guide makes generative AI easy to understand and use—no matter your background, goals, or starting point. This book stands out for its in-depth yet accessible content, so you can learn core concepts without the jargon. It also includes real-world use cases to discover how AI is already transforming diverse industries. This title also offers a balanced perspective.

Written by seasoned tech executive Sandy Carter, AI First, Human Always is your guidebook to the seven hottest trends in AI. This book will recalibrate your approach to the exponential curve of emerging AI solutions for business. It will help you transform today's unstoppable currents of change into tailwinds that propel your organization to great heights.

The founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum on how the impending technological revolution will change our lives. We are on the brink of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. And this one will be unlike any other in human history. Characterized by new technologies fusing the physical, digital and biological worlds, the Fourth Industrial Revolution will impact all disciplines, economies and industries - and it will do so at an unprecedented rate.

This is the first reference book on intelligent automation (IA). Also called hyperautomation, it is one of the most recent trends in the field of artificial intelligence. IA is a cutting-edge combination of methods and technologies involving people, organizations, machine learning, low-code platforms, robotic process automation (RPA), and more. This book is for everyone - whether you are an experienced practitioner, new to the topic, or simply interested in what the future holds for enterprises, work, life, and society as a whole.

Terrence Sejnowski offers a nuanced exploration of large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and what their future holds. How should we go about understanding LLMs? Do these language models truly understand what they are saying? Or is it possible that what appears to be intelligence in LLMs may be a mirror that merely reflects the intelligence of the interviewer? In this book, Sejnowski, a pioneer in computational approaches to understanding brain function, answers all our urgent questions about this astonishing new technology.

Illustrating data feminism in action, D'Ignazio and Klein show how challenges to the male/female binary can help challenge other hierarchical (and empirically wrong) classification systems. They explain how, for example, an understanding of emotion can expand our ideas about effective data visualization, and how the concept of invisible labor can expose the significant human efforts required by our automated systems. And they show why the data never, ever "speak for themselves."

We may love books, but do we know what lies behind them? In The Book, Keith Houston reveals that the paper, ink, thread, glue, and board from which a book is made tell as rich a story as the words on its pages - of civilizations, empires, human ingenuity, and madness. In an invitingly tactile history of this 2,000-year-old medium, Houston follows the development of writing, printing, the art of illustrations, and binding to show how we have moved from cuneiform tablets and papyrus scrolls to the hardcovers and paperbacks of today.