Intelligence History

The Internet and smartphone are just the latest in a 250-year-long cycle of disruption that has continuously changed the way we live, the way we work, and the way we interact. The coming Augmented Age, however, promises a level of disruption, behavioral shifts, and changes that are unparalleled. While consumers today are camping outside of an Apple store waiting to be one of the first to score a new Apple Watch or iPhone, the next generation of wearables will be able to predict if we're likely to have a heart attack and recommend a course of action.

There has been a lot of ink devoted to discussions of how robots will replace us and take our jobs. But MIT Media Lab researcher and technology policy expert Kate Darling argues just the opposite, and that treating robots with a bit of humanity, more like the way we treat animals, will actually serve us better.

Two of the biggest design problems in Artificial Intelligence are how to build robots that behave in line with human values and how to stop them ever going rogue. One under-explored solution to these alignment and control problems might be to examine how these are already addressed in the design of humans. Robot Souls looks at developments in AI and reviews the emergence of ideas of consciousness and the soul. It places our 'junk code' in this context and argues that it is time to foreground that code, and to use it to look again at how we are programming AI.

In Jawbreaker Gary Berntsen, until recently one of the CIA’s most decorated officers, comes out from under cover for the first time to describe his no-holds-barred pursuit of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.

Gordon Corera uses declassified documents and extensive original research to tell the story of the Operation Columba and the Secret Pigeon Service for the first time. A tale of wartime espionage, bitter rivalries, extraordinary courage, astonishing betrayal, harrowing tragedy, and a quirky, quarrelsome band of spy masters and their special mission, Operation Columba opens a fascinating new chapter in the annals of World War II. It is ultimately, the story of how, in one of the darkest and most dangerous times in history, under threat of death, people bravely chose to resist.

We are living in an age of conspiracy theories, whether it's an enduring, widely held belief such as government involvement in the Kennedy assassination, fears of a powerful infiltrating group, or modern fringe movements of varying popularity such as birtherism and trutherism. What is it in American culture that makes conspiracy theories proliferate? Who is targeted, and why? Are we in the heyday of the conspiracy theory, or is it in decline? American Conspiracy Theories is the first to use broad, long-term empirical data to analyze this popular American tendency.

A brief history of DARPA

When interstellar probes land on Earth 2,000 years ago, an unlikely Roman legionnaire stumbles upon one and finds himself the last refuge for humanity in an interstellar war. Lucius, enhanced by the alien technology and seemingly immortal, allies with the alien AI in its quest to save mankind. Lucius wanders the Earth over the millennia, preparing and searching for those who will ally with him before the final conflict. A French priest, a Viking shield maiden and an Irish immigrant make an unlikely team as they confront their enemy, the secretive Obsidian House. Echoes of Reality is filled ...

In the very near future, smart “technologies and big data” will allow us to make large-scale and sophisticated interventions in politics, culture, and everyday life. Technology will allow us to solve problems in highly original ways and create new incentives to get more people to do the right thing. But how will such “solutionism” affect our society, once deeply political, moral, and irresolvable dilemmas are recast as uncontroversial and easily manageable matters of technological efficiency?

Throughout its 40-year history, the Islamic Republic of Iran has remained implacably opposed to the United States, our presence in the Middle East, and our support to Israel. While attempting to strengthen its deterrence against foreign attack and influence, Tehran has committed itself to becoming the dominant power in the turbulent and strategic Middle East. Its ambitions and identity as a largely Persian Shia power in a region composed of primarily Arab Sunni states often put it at odds with its neighbors.

In Double Crossed, historian Matthew Avery Sutton tells the extraordinary story of the entwined roles of spy-craft and faith in a world at war. Missionaries, priests, and rabbis, acutely aware of how their actions seemingly conflicted with their spiritual calling, carried out covert operations, bombings, and assassinations within the centers of global religious power, including Mecca, the Vatican, and Palestine.

The Senate Intelligence Committee Summary Report on Torture is a public document belonging to the American people, arising from the Senate investigation into the CIA’s Interrogation and Detention Program. Commonly known as The Torture Report, the document was made public, with redactions, on December 9, 2009. The events surrounding its investigation, writing, and publication are now the subject of Scott Z. Burns’ film The Report, an Amazon Original (in theaters on 11/15; on Amazon Prime 11/29 from Amazon Studios). Here, you can hear the report in its entirety.

In The Crash of Flight 3804, Investigative Journalist Charlotte Dennett digs into her father’s counterintelligence work, which pitted him against America’s wartime allies - the British, the French, and the Russians - in a covert battle for geopolitical and economic influence in the Middle East. Through vivid storytelling, extensive research, and deep analysis of region-defining maps, she reveals how feverish competition among intelligence networks, military, and Big Oil interests have fueled indiscriminate attacks and targeted killings that continue to this day.

A CIA station chief, later Jordan's lawyer in Washington, reveals the secret history of a lost peace.

Jack O'Connell possessed an uncanny ability to be at the center of things. On his arrival in Jordan in 1958, he unraveled a coup aimed at the young King Hussein, who would become America's most reliable Middle East ally. Over time, their bond of trust and friendship deepened. His narrative contains secrets that will revise our understanding of the Middle East.

In Life Finds a Way, biologist Andreas Wagner reveals the deep symmetry between innovation in biological evolution and human cultural creativity. Rarely is either a linear climb to perfection - instead, "progress" is typically marked by a sequence of peaks, plateaus, and pitfalls. For instance, in Picasso's 40-some iterations of Guernica, we see the same combination of small steps, incessant reshuffling, and large, almost reckless, leaps that characterize the way evolution transformed a dinosaur's grasping claw into a condor's soaring wing.

Assassinats de dirigeants étrangers, coups d’État, trafic d’armes et de drogues, soutien à des groupes terroristes ou à d’anciens nazis, détentions abusives et tortures, expérimentations d’armes chimiques... Depuis sa création, la CIA n’a cessé de multiplier les infractions à la loi. Elle déclassifie une partie de ses archives arguant que les dérapages de la guerre froide sont aujourd’hui révolus. Ce livre montre qu’il n’en est rien. Pour la première fois, cet ouvrage dresse un bilan aussi exhaustif que possible des méthodes douteuses de l’Agence, des origines à nos jours.

Did you know about Eli Cohen, the legendary Mossad agent who infiltrated the highest ranks of the Syrian government? How about the shadowy State School 4 "Sparrow", rumored to train seductive operatives during the Cold War? Or the real-life spies whose daring exploits inspired the iconic James Bond 007 franchise?

Il tema dell'intelligenza artificiale sta dominando ormai da alcuni anni il dibattito pubblico. Questo perché, anche se abbiamo appena iniziato ad avvertire l'impatto che l'IA avrà sulle nostre vite, stiamo diventando sempre più consapevoli che i suoi effetti saranno profondi, così come sarà profondo il modo in cui essa trasformerà il nostro rapporto con la realtà, la conoscenza e la verità. Le sue potenzialità aumentano a un ritmo vertiginoso, e i progressi, come i benefici che sapremo trarne, appaiono straordinari. Tuttavia, non mancano i segnali d'allarme.

The judging panel of the Hebrew Writers Association and Tamuz Publishing House unanimously chose The Arab Within as the best prose book for the year 2000. “Against a background of this decade’s political events, there unfolds a creative and fascinating tale, which slowly penetrates the membrane of Israel’s sanity, to extract truths that pluck at the chords of our soul.” (The judging panel) From the book: Nadia’s words rose and floated in his head. As long as he doesn’t meet the victim face to face, he’ll never know who it was and now that he has details of the man’s private ...

Isolationism became one of the most influential political trends in American history. From the founding era until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States shunned strategic commitments abroad, making only brief detours during the Spanish-American War and World War I. Amid World War II and the Cold War, Americans abandoned isolationism; they tried to run the world rather than run away from it. But isolationism is making a comeback. Author Charles Kupchan explores the enduring connection between the isolationist impulse and the American experience.