Talking To Machines

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Talking about Machines

Author : Julian E. Orr
Publisher : Cornell University Press
ISBN 13 : 1501707396
Total Pages : 191 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (17 download)

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Book Synopsis Talking about Machines by : Julian E. Orr

Download or read book Talking about Machines written by Julian E. Orr and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2016-10-01 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a story of how work gets done. It is also a study of how field service technicians talk about their work and how that talk is instrumental in their success. In his innovative ethnography, Julian E. Orr studies the people who repair photocopiers and shares vignettes from their daily lives. He characterizes their work as a continuous highly skilled improvisation within a triangular relationship of technician, customer, and machine. The work technicians do encompasses elements not contained in the official definition of the job yet vital to its success. Orr's analysis of the way repair people talk about their work reveals that talk is, in fact, a crucial dimension of their practice. Diagnosis happens through a narrative process, the creation of a coherent description of the troubled machine. The descriptions become the basis for technicians' discourse about their experience, and the circulation of stories among the technicians is the principal means by which they stay informed of the developing subtleties of machine behavior. Orr demonstrates that technical knowledge is a socially distributed resource stored and diffused primarily through an oral culture.Based on participant observation with copier repair technicians in the field and strengthened by Orr's own years as a technician, this book explodes numerous myths about technicians and suggests how technical work differs from other kinds of employment.

How to Speak Machine

Author : John Maeda
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0399564438
Total Pages : 242 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (995 download)

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Book Synopsis How to Speak Machine by : John Maeda

Download or read book How to Speak Machine written by John Maeda and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2019-11-12 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Visionary designer and technologist John Maeda defines the fundamental laws of how computers think, and why you should care even if you aren't a programmer. "Maeda is to design what Warren Buffett is to finance." --Wired John Maeda is one of the world's preeminent interdisciplinary thinkers on technology and design. 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. Technology is 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 tirelessness combine with its ability to learn and transform itself, the outcome can be unpredictable and dangerous. Take the seemingly instant transformation of Microsoft's chatbot Tay into a hate-spewing racist, or how crime-predicting algorithms reinforce racial bias. How to Speak Machine provides a coherent framework for today's product designers, business leaders, and policymakers to grasp this brave new world. Drawing on his wide-ranging experience from engineering to computer science to design, Maeda shows how businesses and individuals can identify opportunities afforded by technology to make world-changing and inclusive products--while avoiding the pitfalls inherent to the medium.

Scary Smart

Author : Mo Gawdat
Publisher : Bluebird
ISBN 13 : 9781529077650
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (776 download)

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Book Synopsis Scary Smart by : Mo Gawdat

Download or read book Scary Smart written by Mo Gawdat and published by Bluebird. This book was released on 2022-12-08 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Sunday Times Business Book of the Year. Scary Smart will teach you how to navigate the scary and inevitable intrusion of Artificial Intelligence, with an accessible blueprint for creating a harmonious future alongside AI. From Mo Gawdat, the former Chief Business Officer at Google [X] and bestselling author of Solve for Happy. Technology is putting our humanity at risk to an unprecedented degree. This book is not for engineers who write the code or the policy makers who claim they can regulate it. This is a book for you. Because, believe it or not, you are the only one that can fix it. - Mo Gawdat Artificial intelligence is smarter than humans. It can process information at lightning speed and remain focused on specific tasks without distraction. AI can see into the future, predict outcomes and even use sensors to see around physical and virtual corners. So why does AI frequently get it so wrong and cause harm? The answer is us: the human beings who write the code and teach AI to mimic our behaviour. Scary Smart explains how to fix the current trajectory now, to make sure that the AI of the future can preserve our species. This book offers a blueprint, pointing the way to what we can do to safeguard ourselves, those we love, and the planet itself. 'No one ever regrets reading anything Mo Gawdat has written.' - Emma Gannon, author of The Multi-Hyphen Method and host of the podcast Ctrl Alt Delete

To Be a Machine

Author : Mark O'Connell
Publisher : Anchor
ISBN 13 : 0385540426
Total Pages : 221 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (855 download)

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Book Synopsis To Be a Machine by : Mark O'Connell

Download or read book To Be a Machine written by Mark O'Connell and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2017-02-28 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “This gonzo-journalistic exploration of the Silicon Valley techno-utopians’ pursuit of escaping mortality is a breezy romp full of colorful characters.” —New York Times Book Review (Editor's Choice) Transhumanism is a movement pushing the limits of our bodies—our capabilities, intelligence, and lifespans—in the hopes that, through technology, we can become something better than ourselves. It has found support among Silicon Valley billionaires and some of the world’s biggest businesses. In To Be a Machine, journalist Mark O'Connell explores the staggering possibilities and moral quandaries that present themselves when you of think of your body as a device. He visits the world's foremost cryonics facility to witness how some have chosen to forestall death. He discovers an underground collective of biohackers, implanting electronics under their skin to enhance their senses. He meets a team of scientists urgently investigating how to protect mankind from artificial superintelligence. Where is our obsession with technology leading us? What does the rise of AI mean not just for our offices and homes, but for our humanity? Could the technologies we create to help us eventually bring us to harm? Addressing these questions, O'Connell presents a profound, provocative, often laugh-out-loud-funny look at an influential movement. In investigating what it means to be a machine, he offers a surprising meditation on what it means to be human.

Gods and Robots

Author : Adrienne Mayor
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691202265
Total Pages : 294 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (912 download)

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Book Synopsis Gods and Robots by : Adrienne Mayor

Download or read book Gods and Robots written by Adrienne Mayor and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-21 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces the story of how ancient cultures envisioned artificial life, automata, self-moving devices and human enhancements, sharing insights into how the mythologies of the past related to and shaped ancient machine innovations.

Artificial Intelligence

Author : Melanie Mitchell
Publisher : Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN 13 : 0374715238
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (747 download)

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Book Synopsis Artificial Intelligence by : Melanie Mitchell

Download or read book Artificial Intelligence written by Melanie Mitchell and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2019-10-15 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Melanie Mitchell separates science fact from science fiction in this sweeping examination of the current state of AI and how it is remaking our world No recent scientific enterprise has proved as alluring, terrifying, and filled with extravagant promise and frustrating setbacks as artificial intelligence. The award-winning author Melanie Mitchell, a leading computer scientist, now reveals AI’s turbulent history and the recent spate of apparent successes, grand hopes, and emerging fears surrounding it. In Artificial Intelligence, Mitchell turns to the most urgent questions concerning AI today: How intelligent—really—are the best AI programs? How do they work? What can they actually do, and when do they fail? How humanlike do we expect them to become, and how soon do we need to worry about them surpassing us? Along the way, she introduces the dominant models of modern AI and machine learning, describing cutting-edge AI programs, their human inventors, and the historical lines of thought underpinning recent achievements. She meets with fellow experts such as Douglas Hofstadter, the cognitive scientist and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of the modern classic Gödel, Escher, Bach, who explains why he is “terrified” about the future of AI. She explores the profound disconnect between the hype and the actual achievements in AI, providing a clear sense of what the field has accomplished and how much further it has to go. Interweaving stories about the science of AI and the people behind it, Artificial Intelligence brims with clear-sighted, captivating, and accessible accounts of the most interesting and provocative modern work in the field, flavored with Mitchell’s humor and personal observations. This frank, lively book is an indispensable guide to understanding today’s AI, its quest for “human-level” intelligence, and its impact on the future for us all.

Sekret Machines Book 1: Chasing Shadows

Author : Tom DeLonge
Publisher : To The Stars
ISBN 13 : 1943272166
Total Pages : 541 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (432 download)

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Book Synopsis Sekret Machines Book 1: Chasing Shadows by : Tom DeLonge

Download or read book Sekret Machines Book 1: Chasing Shadows written by Tom DeLonge and published by To The Stars. This book was released on 2016-04-05 with total page 541 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For those who know... that something is going on... The witnesses are legion, scattered across the world and dotted through history, people who looked up and saw something impossible lighting up the night sky. What those objects were, where they came from, and who—or what—might be inside them is the subject of fierce debate and equally fierce mockery, so that most who glimpsed them came to wish they hadn’t. Most, but not everyone. Among those who know what they’ve seen, and—like the toll of a bell that can’t be unrung—are forever changed by it, are a pilot, an heiress, a journalist, and a prisoner of war. From the waning days of the 20th century’s final great war to the fraught fields of Afghanistan to the otherworldly secrets hidden amid Nevada’s dusty neverlands—the truth that is out there will propel each of them into a labyrinth of otherworldly technology and the competing aims of those who might seek to prevent—or harness—these beings of unfathomable power. Because, as it turns out, we are not the only ones who can invent and build...and destroy. Featuring actual events and other truths drawn from sources within the military and intelligence community, Tom DeLonge and A.J. Hartley offer a tale at once terrifying, fantastical, and perhaps all too real. Though it is, of course, a work of... fiction?

The Age of Spiritual Machines

Author : Ray Kurzweil
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1101077883
Total Pages : 404 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (1 download)

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Book Synopsis The Age of Spiritual Machines by : Ray Kurzweil

Download or read book The Age of Spiritual Machines written by Ray Kurzweil and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2000-01-01 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Bold futurist Ray Kurzweil, author of The Singularity Is Near, offers a framework for envisioning the future of machine intelligence—“a book for anyone who wonders where human technology is going next” (The New York Times Book Review). “Kurzweil offers a thought-provoking analysis of human and artificial intelligence and a unique look at a future in which the capabilities of the computer and the species that invented it grow ever closer.”—BILL GATES Imagine a world where the difference between man and machine blurs, where the line between humanity and technology fades, and where the soul and the silicon chip unite. This is not science fiction. This is the twenty-first century according to Ray Kurzweil, the “restless genius” (The Wall Street Journal), “ultimate thinking machine” (Forbes), and inventor of the most innovative and compelling technology of our era. In his inspired hands, life in the new millennium no longer seems daunting. Instead, it promises to be an age in which the marriage of human sensitivity and artificial intelligence fundamentally alters and improves the way we live. More than just a list of predictions, Kurzweil’s prophetic blueprint for the future guides us through the inexorable advances that will result in: • Computers exceeding the memory capacity and computational ability of the human brain (with human-level capabilities not far behind) • Relationships with automated personalities who will be our teachers, companions, and lovers • Information fed straight into our brains along direct neural pathways Eventually, the distinction between humans and computers will have become sufficiently blurred that when the machines claim to be conscious, we will believe them.

Artificial Unintelligence

Author : Meredith Broussard
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 026253701X
Total Pages : 247 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (625 download)

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Book Synopsis Artificial Unintelligence by : Meredith Broussard

Download or read book Artificial Unintelligence written by Meredith Broussard and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2019-01-29 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A guide to understanding the inner workings and outer limits of technology and why we should never assume that computers always get it right. In Artificial Unintelligence, Meredith Broussard argues that our collective enthusiasm for applying computer technology to every aspect of life has resulted in a tremendous amount of poorly designed systems. We are so eager to do everything digitally—hiring, driving, paying bills, even choosing romantic partners—that we have stopped demanding that our technology actually work. Broussard, a software developer and journalist, reminds us that there are fundamental limits to what we can (and should) do with technology. With this book, she offers a guide to understanding the inner workings and outer limits of technology—and issues a warning that we should never assume that computers always get things right. Making a case against technochauvinism—the belief that technology is always the solution—Broussard argues that it's just not true that social problems would inevitably retreat before a digitally enabled Utopia. To prove her point, she undertakes a series of adventures in computer programming. She goes for an alarming ride in a driverless car, concluding “the cyborg future is not coming any time soon”; uses artificial intelligence to investigate why students can't pass standardized tests; deploys machine learning to predict which passengers survived the Titanic disaster; and attempts to repair the U.S. campaign finance system by building AI software. If we understand the limits of what we can do with technology, Broussard tells us, we can make better choices about what we should do with it to make the world better for everyone.

Turing's Imitation Game

Author : Kevin Warwick
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1316982599
Total Pages : 204 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (169 download)

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Book Synopsis Turing's Imitation Game by : Kevin Warwick

Download or read book Turing's Imitation Game written by Kevin Warwick and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-09-22 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can you tell the difference between talking to a human and talking to a machine? Or, is it possible to create a machine which is able to converse like a human? In fact, what is it that even makes us human? Turing's Imitation Game, commonly known as the Turing Test, is fundamental to the science of artificial intelligence. Involving an interrogator conversing with hidden identities, both human and machine, the test strikes at the heart of any questions about the capacity of machines to behave as humans. While this subject area has shifted dramatically in the last few years, this book offers an up-to-date assessment of Turing's Imitation Game, its history, context and implications, all illustrated with practical Turing tests. The contemporary relevance of this topic and the strong emphasis on example transcripts makes this book an ideal companion for undergraduate courses in artificial intelligence, engineering or computer science.

Deep Thinking

Author : Garry Kasparov
Publisher : PublicAffairs
ISBN 13 : 1610397878
Total Pages : 310 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (13 download)

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Book Synopsis Deep Thinking by : Garry Kasparov

Download or read book Deep Thinking written by Garry Kasparov and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2017-05-02 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Garry Kasparov's 1997 chess match against the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue was a watershed moment in the history of technology. It was the dawn of a new era in artificial intelligence: a machine capable of beating the reigning human champion at this most cerebral game. That moment was more than a century in the making, and in this breakthrough book, Kasparov reveals his astonishing side of the story for the first time. He describes how it felt to strategize against an implacable, untiring opponent with the whole world watching, and recounts the history of machine intelligence through the microcosm of chess, considered by generations of scientific pioneers to be a key to unlocking the secrets of human and machine cognition. Kasparov uses his unrivaled experience to look into the future of intelligent machines and sees it bright with possibility. As many critics decry artificial intelligence as a menace, particularly to human jobs, Kasparov shows how humanity can rise to new heights with the help of our most extraordinary creations, rather than fear them. Deep Thinking is a tightly argued case for technological progress, from the man who stood at its precipice with his own career at stake.

Human-machine Communication

Author : Andrea L. Guzman
Publisher : Digital Formations
ISBN 13 : 9781433142505
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (425 download)

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Book Synopsis Human-machine Communication by : Andrea L. Guzman

Download or read book Human-machine Communication written by Andrea L. Guzman and published by Digital Formations. This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book serves as an introduction to HMC as a specific area of study within communication and to the research possibilities of HMC. The research presented here focuses on people's interactions with multiple technologies used within different contexts from a variety of epistemological and methodological approaches.

Your Brain Is a Time Machine: The Neuroscience and Physics of Time

Author : Dean Buonomano
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0393247953
Total Pages : 357 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (932 download)

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Book Synopsis Your Brain Is a Time Machine: The Neuroscience and Physics of Time by : Dean Buonomano

Download or read book Your Brain Is a Time Machine: The Neuroscience and Physics of Time written by Dean Buonomano and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2017-04-04 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Beautifully written, eloquently reasoned…Mr. Buonomano takes us off and running on an edifying scientific journey." —Carol Tavris, Wall Street Journal In Your Brain Is a Time Machine, leading neuroscientist Dean Buonomano embarks on an "immensely engaging" exploration of how time works inside the brain (Barbara Kiser, Nature). The human brain, he argues, is a complex system that not only tells time, but creates it; it constructs our sense of chronological movement and enables "mental time travel"—simulations of future and past events. These functions are essential not only to our daily lives but to the evolution of the human race: without the ability to anticipate the future, mankind would never have crafted tools or invented agriculture. This virtuosic work of popular science will lead you to a revelation as strange as it is true: your brain is, at its core, a time machine.

Teaching Machines

Author : Audrey Watters
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 026254606X
Total Pages : 325 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (625 download)

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Book Synopsis Teaching Machines by : Audrey Watters

Download or read book Teaching Machines written by Audrey Watters and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2023-02-07 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How ed tech was born: Twentieth-century teaching machines--from Sidney Pressey's mechanized test-giver to B. F. Skinner's behaviorist bell-ringing box. Contrary to popular belief, ed tech did not begin with videos on the internet. The idea of technology that would allow students to "go at their own pace" did not originate in Silicon Valley. In Teaching Machines, education writer Audrey Watters offers a lively history of predigital educational technology, from Sidney Pressey's mechanized positive-reinforcement provider to B. F. Skinner's behaviorist bell-ringing box. Watters shows that these machines and the pedagogy that accompanied them sprang from ideas--bite-sized content, individualized instruction--that had legs and were later picked up by textbook publishers and early advocates for computerized learning. Watters pays particular attention to the role of the media--newspapers, magazines, television, and film--in shaping people's perceptions of teaching machines as well as the psychological theories underpinning them. She considers these machines in the context of education reform, the political reverberations of Sputnik, and the rise of the testing and textbook industries. She chronicles Skinner's attempts to bring his teaching machines to market, culminating in the famous behaviorist's efforts to launch Didak 101, the "pre-verbal" machine that taught spelling. (Alternate names proposed by Skinner include "Autodidak," "Instructomat," and "Autostructor.") Telling these somewhat cautionary tales, Watters challenges what she calls "the teleology of ed tech"--the idea that not only is computerized education inevitable, but technological progress is the sole driver of events.

The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values

Author : Brian Christian
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 039363583X
Total Pages : 459 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (936 download)

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Book Synopsis The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values by : Brian Christian

Download or read book The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values written by Brian Christian and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 459 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A jaw-dropping exploration of everything that goes wrong when we build AI systems and the movement to fix them. Today’s “machine-learning” systems, trained by data, are so effective that we’ve invited them to see and hear for us—and to make decisions on our behalf. But alarm bells are ringing. Recent years have seen an eruption of concern as the field of machine learning advances. When the systems we attempt to teach will not, in the end, do what we want or what we expect, ethical and potentially existential risks emerge. Researchers call this the alignment problem. Systems cull résumés until, years later, we discover that they have inherent gender biases. Algorithms decide bail and parole—and appear to assess Black and White defendants differently. We can no longer assume that our mortgage application, or even our medical tests, will be seen by human eyes. And as autonomous vehicles share our streets, we are increasingly putting our lives in their hands. The mathematical and computational models driving these changes range in complexity from something that can fit on a spreadsheet to a complex system that might credibly be called “artificial intelligence.” They are steadily replacing both human judgment and explicitly programmed software. In best-selling author Brian Christian’s riveting account, we meet the alignment problem’s “first-responders,” and learn their ambitious plan to solve it before our hands are completely off the wheel. In a masterful blend of history and on-the ground reporting, Christian traces the explosive growth in the field of machine learning and surveys its current, sprawling frontier. Readers encounter a discipline finding its legs amid exhilarating and sometimes terrifying progress. Whether they—and we—succeed or fail in solving the alignment problem will be a defining human story. The Alignment Problem offers an unflinching reckoning with humanity’s biases and blind spots, our own unstated assumptions and often contradictory goals. A dazzlingly interdisciplinary work, it takes a hard look not only at our technology but at our culture—and finds a story by turns harrowing and hopeful.

The Demon in the Machine

Author : Paul Davies
Publisher : Penguin UK
ISBN 13 : 0241309603
Total Pages : 297 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (413 download)

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Book Synopsis The Demon in the Machine by : Paul Davies

Download or read book The Demon in the Machine written by Paul Davies and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2019-01-31 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'A gripping new drama in science ... if you want to understand how the concept of life is changing, read this' Professor Andrew Briggs, University of Oxford When Darwin set out to explain the origin of species, he made no attempt to answer the deeper question: what is life? For generations, scientists have struggled to make sense of this fundamental question. Life really does look like magic: even a humble bacterium accomplishes things so dazzling that no human engineer can match it. And yet, huge advances in molecular biology over the past few decades have served only to deepen the mystery. So can life be explained by known physics and chemistry, or do we need something fundamentally new? In this penetrating and wide-ranging new analysis, world-renowned physicist and science communicator Paul Davies searches for answers in a field so new and fast-moving that it lacks a name, a domain where computing, chemistry, quantum physics and nanotechnology intersect. At the heart of these diverse fields, Davies explains, is the concept of information: a quantity with the power to unify biology with physics, transform technology and medicine, and even to illuminate the age-old question of whether we are alone in the universe. From life's murky origins to the microscopic engines that run the cells of our bodies, The Demon in the Machine is a breath-taking journey across the landscape of physics, biology, logic and computing. Weaving together cancer and consciousness, two-headed worms and bird navigation, Davies reveals how biological organisms garner and process information to conjure order out of chaos, opening a window on the secret of life itself.

Machines Like Me

Author : Ian McEwan
Publisher : Anchor
ISBN 13 : 0385545126
Total Pages : 291 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (855 download)

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Book Synopsis Machines Like Me by : Ian McEwan

Download or read book Machines Like Me written by Ian McEwan and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2019-04-23 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Booker Prize winner and bestselling author of Atonement—”a sharply intelligent novel of ideas” (The New York Times) that asks whether a machine can understand the human heart, or whether we are the ones who lack understanding. Set in an uncanny alternative 1982 London—where Britain has lost the Falklands War, Margaret Thatcher battles Tony Benn for power, and Alan Turing achieves a breakthrough in artificial intelligence—Machines Like Me powerfully portrays two lovers who will be tested beyond their understanding. Charlie, drifting through life and dodging full-time employment, is in love with Miranda, a bright student who lives with a terrible secret. When Charlie comes into money, he buys Adam, one of the first generation of synthetic humans. With Miranda's assistance, he codesigns Adam's personality. The near-perfect human that emerges is beautiful, strong, and smart—and a love triangle soon forms. Ian McEwan's subversive, gripping novel poses fundamental questions: What makes us human—our outward deeds or our inner lives? Could a machine understand the human heart? This provocative and thrilling tale warns against the power to invent things beyond our control. Don’t miss Ian McEwan’s new novel, Lessons, coming in September!