Social Machines

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.

We live in a world where data can help us make more informed decisions about how to navigate traffic, who to date, what to buy, who to network with and how to better manage our finances. But when it comes to our personal health and wellness, we have no roadmap. We need something to show us where we are in terms of our health, with landmarks for risks and opportunities. A GPS that makes it easier to move toward our personal health goals. A new way to look at health and life.

It's undeniable - social media is not just a fleeting trend. It's here to stay. Right now, the opportunity is knocking at your door. The question is, when will you seize it? When will you start leveraging the power of social media, where posting content is not only free but can also become a lucrative venture?

In Work Mate Marry Love, Harvard Business School professor and former Barnard College president Debora L. Spar offers an incisive and provocative account of how technology has transformed our intimate lives in the past, and how it will do so again in the future. Surveying the course of history, she shows how marriage as we understand it resulted from the rise of agriculture, and that the nuclear family emerged with the industrial revolution. In their day, the street light, the car, and later the pill all upended courtship and sex.

In Robotaxi Revolution, Dr. Samuel Xiangming Li explores the transformative impact of autonomous taxis on the future of transportation and society. These self-driving vehicles, powered by cutting-edge AI and advanced sensor technologies, are set to redefine personal mobility, disrupt the auto industry, and reshape urban infrastructure. From ride-hailing services to the decline of car ownership, robotaxis promise to bring greater convenience, reduced emissions, and safer roads.

In The Republican Noise Machine, David Brock, a former right-wing insider and the author of the New York Times best seller Blinded by the Right, uses his keen understanding of the strategies, tactics, financing, and personalities of the American right wing to demonstrate how the once-fringe phenomenon of right-wing media has all but subsumed the regular media conversation, shaped the national consciousness, and turned American politics sharply to the right.

You are probably not aware, because of their hidden nature, but artificial intelligence systems are all around you affecting some of the biggest areas of your life - jobs, loans, kids, mental health, relationships, freedoms, and even healthcare decisions that can determine if you live or die.

Bob Muglia helps us understand how innovation in data and information technology have led us to AI—and how this technology must shape our future. The long-time Microsoft executive, former CEO of Snowflake, and current tech investor maps the evolution of the modern data stack and how it has helped build today's economy and society. And he explains how humanity must create a new social contract for the artificial general intelligence (AGI)—autonomous machines intelligent as people-that he expects to arrive in less than a decade.

Artificial intelligence is driving workforce disruption on a scale not seen since the Industrial Revolution. In schools and universities, AI technology has forced a re-evaluation of the way students are taught and assessed. Meanwhile ChatGPT has become a cultural phenomenon, reaching 100 million users and attracting a $10 billion dollar investment in its parent company OpenAI. The race to dominate the generative AI market is accelerating at breakneck speed, inspiring breathless headlines and immense public interest.

Online disinformation stormed our political process in 2016 and has only worsened since. Yet as Samuel Woolley shows in this urgent book, it may pale in comparison to what's to come: humanlike automated voice systems, machine learning, "deepfake" AI-edited videos and images, interactive memes, virtual reality, and more. These technologies have the power not just to manipulate our politics, but to make us doubt our eyes and ears and even feelings. Deeply researched and compellingly written, The Reality Game describes the profound impact these technologies will have on our lives.

Following the massive international success "The Netocrats" and its ambitious follow-up "The Global Empire", in this third installment of the "Futurica Trilogy", Bard and Söderqvist approach something far more personal - the fragile human being herself and, most of all, her brain. "The Body Machines", with a title borrowed from René Descartes, explains what a brain is, how it has developed and how it functions, and why it spends such an incredible amount of time and energy on fooling itself.

Shame is a powerful and sometimes useful tool. When we publicly shame corrupt politicians, abusive celebrities or predatory corporations, we reinforce values of fairness and justice. But as best-selling author Cathy O'Neil argues in this revelatory book, shaming has taken a new and dangerous turn. It is increasingly being weaponised - used as a way to shift responsibility for social problems from institutions to individuals. O'Neil explores the machinery behind all this shame, showing how governments, corporations and the healthcare system capitalise on it.

In 1996, Linda Cruse, a stressed-out single mum working in a job she hated, was driving along a motorway in the middle of the night, when she suffered temporary blindness. This terrifying episode led to a blinding insight: What is the point of living if living has no point? Determined to make a difference, Linda began a new life. This was the start of a scary, lonely, but always emotionally fulfilling job: teaching skills and bringing aid - and, above all, love - to war-torn refugees, the poverty-stricken, and the victims of disaster.

The disinformation age is drowning us in a deluge of data, "facts" and opinion. It consumes our attention. The result of this deficit of attention is the rise of fake news, media bias, and a polarised society. Our capacity to reason what is happening in the world and to make better decisions has become incapacitated amid the cacophony. Instead, we outsource our thinking to others without even realising it. Economist Peter Sainsbury unravels the truth about the power of media narratives, the breakdown in trust and why our attention has been diverted from what matters.

John Maeda is one of the world's preeminent thinkers on technology and design, and in How to Speak Machine, he offers a set of simple laws that govern not only the computers of today but the unimaginable machines of the future. Machines are already more powerful than we can comprehend and getting more powerful at an exponential pace. Once set in motion, algorithms never tire. And when a program's size, speed and endlessness combine with its ability to learn and transform itself, the outcome can be unpredictable and dangerous.

In his blockbuster new book, To Save America, former Speaker of the House and best-selling author Newt Gingrich issues a dire warning for America. Gingrich argues that the big-spending, big-government programs and bureaucracies of the secular socialist Left are the greatest threat to our nation’s survival since the Civil War.

From mechanical looms to combustion engines to early computers, new technologies have always provoked panic about workers being replaced by machines. In the past, such fears have been misplaced, and many economists maintain that they remain so today. Yet in A World Without Work, Daniel Susskind shows why this time really is different. Advances in artificial intelligence mean that all kinds of jobs are increasingly at risk.

Want to find out how to use Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and more to take your business and marketing to the next level? I have poured everything that I know into this book. It simplifies everything that works to show you how you can use the world's most popular social networks to get your product or service in front of a vast array of potential targeted customers using the simplest of techniques that anyone can use.

In 1919, in the wake of the First World War, a group of extraordinary women came together to create the Women's Engineering Society. They were trailblazers, pioneers and boundary breakers, but many of their stories have been lost to history. To mark the centenary of the society's creation, Magnificent Women and Their Revolutionary Machines brings them back to life.

Discover the transformative potential of Natural Language Processing (NLP) with the groundbreaking eBook "Unleashing Text Insights". This book serves as an all-encompassing guide to understanding, mastering, and implementing the principles of NLP, in concert with the vast world of text data analytics. Opening with a comprehensive introduction to Natural Language Processing, including its evolution, importance, and terminologies, it sets the stage for a deep dive into the essence of text data. It examines its characteristics, types, and challenges in processing, making for a richly ...