Download or read book Living with Computers written by James W. Cortada and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-03-11 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The computing technology on which we are now so dependent has risen to its position of ascendency so rapidly that few of us have had the opportunity to take a step back and wonder where we are headed. This book urges us to do so. Taking a big-picture perspective on digital technology, Living with Computers leads the reader on a whistle-stop tour of the history of information and information technology. This journey culminates in a deep exploration into the meaning and role of computers in our lives, and what this experience might possibly mean for the future of human society – and the very existence of humanity itself. In the face of the transformative power of computing, this book provokes us to ask big questions. If computers become integrated into our bodies, merging with the information processing of our very DNA, will computing help to shape the evolution of biological life? If artificial intelligence advances beyond the abilities of the human brain, will this overturn our anthropocentrism and lead to a new view of reality? Will we control the computers of the future, or will they control us? These questions can be discomforting, yet they cannot be ignored. This book argues that it is time to reshape our definition of our species in the context of our interaction with computing. For although such science-fiction scenarios are not likely to happen any time soon – and may, in fact, never happen – it is nevertheless vital to consider these issues now if we wish to have any influence over whatever is to come. So, humans, let’s confront our possible destiny! James W. Cortada is a Senior Research Fellow at the Charles Babbage Institute at the University of Minnesota. He holds a Ph.D. in modern history and worked at IBM in various positions for 38 years, including in IBM’s management research institute, The IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV). He is the author of over a dozen books on management, and nearly two dozen books on the history of information technology. These include the Springer title From Urban Legends to Political Fact-Checking: Online Scrutiny in America, 1990-2015 (with William Aspray).
Download or read book Wetware written by Dennis Bray and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2009-05-26 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A beautifully written journey into the mechanics of the world of the cell, and even beyond, exploring the analogy with computers in a surprising way” (Denis Noble, author of Dance to the Tune of Life). How does a single-cell creature, such as an amoeba, lead such a sophisticated life? How does it hunt living prey, respond to lights, sounds, and smells, and display complex sequences of movements without the benefit of a nervous system? This book offers a startling and original answer. In clear, jargon-free language, Dennis Bray taps the findings from the discipline of systems biology to show that the internal chemistry of living cells is a form of computation. Cells are built out of molecular circuits that perform logical operations, as electronic devices do, but with unique properties. Bray argues that the computational juice of cells provides the basis for all distinctive properties of living systems: it allows organisms to embody in their internal structure an image of the world, and this accounts for their adaptability, responsiveness, and intelligence. In Wetware, Bray offers imaginative, wide-ranging, and perceptive critiques of robotics and complexity theory, as well as many entertaining and telling anecdotes. For the general reader, the practicing scientist, and all others with an interest in the nature of life, this book is an exciting portal to some of biology’s latest discoveries and ideas. “Drawing on the similarities between Pac-Man and an amoeba and efforts to model the human brain, this absorbing read shows that biologists and engineers have a lot to learn from working together.” —Discover magazine “Wetware will get the reader thinking.” —Science magazine
Download or read book Algorithms to Live By written by Brian Christian and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2016-04-19 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Algorithms to Live By' looks at the simple, precise algorithms that computers use to solve the complex 'human' problems that we face, and discovers what they can tell us about the nature and origin of the mind.
Download or read book The Trouble with Computers written by Thomas K. Landauer and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beginning with an explanation of why considerable outlays for computing since 1973 have not resulted in comparable payoffs, the author proposes that emerging techniques for user-centred development can turn the situation around - through task analysis, ite
Download or read book Tricky Living written by Russ Walter and published by . This book was released on 2004-07-01 with total page 127 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covers everything important about life. 10 sections: health (blood chemistry, nutrition, etc.) , daily survival (housing, transportation, finances, careers, crooks, etc.), law (lawyers, judges, politics, war), intellectual life (professors, philosophers, psychologists, mathematicians, scientists), arts (Picasso's advice, music, movies, writing), American cultures (holidays, aging, regions), foreign cultures (French, Spanish, German, Japanese, Chinese), morality (ethics, prejudice, evil, Christian humor, Judaism), sexuality (male-female relationships, prostitution), and Donna's comments (about Chinese & American cultures). Fun, tricks, philosophies, and methods, written by Russ & Donna and culled from thousands of other sources.
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.
Download or read book Living with Computers written by Patrick G. McKeown and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt P. This book was released on 1991 with total page 950 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Electronic Life written by Michael Crichton and published by Alfred A. Knopf. This book was released on 1983 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Artificial Life written by Steven Levy and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book looks at artificial life science - A-Life, an important new area of scientific research involving the disciplines of microbiology, evolutionary theory, physics, chemistry and computer science. In the 1940s a mathematician named John von Neumann, a man with a claim to being the father of the modern computer, invented a hypothetical mathematical entity called a cellular automaton. His aim was to construct a machine that could reproduce itself. In the years since, with the development of hugely more sophisticated and complex computers, von Neumann's insights have gradually led to a point where scientists have created, within the wiring of these machines, something that so closely simulates life that it may, arguably, be called life. This machine reproduces itself, mutates, evolves through generations and dies.
Download or read book At Home with Computers written by Elaine Lally and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-05-18 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New technologies are profoundly reshaping the world around us. Home computers - unheard of two decades ago - now play an intimate role as personal possessions in many people's lives. For some, computer games may be vital to winding-down after a busy day, while for others the home computer represents only work or is a means through which to socialize in cyberspace. Powerfully symbolic of both future and present trends, computers are increasingly seen as essential home purchases. This book is the first sustained examination of the revealing role computers play in our domestic lives. Do computers cause or help to resolve arguments? What role does gender play in negotiating their use? Who spends the most time with the computer? How does the importance of home computers change as we move from childhood through careers to retirement? Drawing upon topical theories from material culture, technology and consumption studies, Lally traces the social life of these machines and provides unique insights into the many different ways in which they are transformed into highly personal possessions. The result is an absorbing account of everyday life in the information age. This book will be of interest to anthropologists, geographers, sociologists and anyone who wants to get to know how their home computer affects their family life.
Download or read book Slow Computing written by Kitchin, Rob and published by Policy Press. This book was released on 2020-09-24 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Digital technologies should be making life easier. And to a large degree they are, transforming everyday tasks of work, consumption, communication, travel and play. But they are also accelerating and fragmenting our lives affecting our well-being and exposing us to extensive data extraction and profiling that helps determine our life chances. Initially, the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown seemed to create new opportunities for people to practice ‘slow computing’, but it quickly became clear that it was as difficult, if not more so, than during normal times. Is it then possible to experience the joy and benefits of computing, but to do so in a way that asserts individual and collective autonomy over our time and data? Drawing on the ideas of the ‘slow movement’, Slow Computing sets out numerous practical and political means to take back control and counter the more pernicious effects of living digital lives.
Download or read book Life on the Screen written by Sherry Turkle and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-04-26 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Life on the Screen is a book not about computers, but about people and how computers are causing us to reevaluate our identities in the age of the Internet. We are using life on the screen to engage in new ways of thinking about evolution, relationships, politics, sex, and the self. Life on the Screen traces a set of boundary negotiations, telling the story of the changing impact of the computer on our psychological lives and our evolving ideas about minds, bodies, and machines. What is emerging, Turkle says, is a new sense of identity—as decentered and multiple. She describes trends in computer design, in artificial intelligence, and in people’s experiences of virtual environments that confirm a dramatic shift in our notions of self, other, machine, and world. The computer emerges as an object that brings postmodernism down to earth.
Download or read book Living Computers written by Alvis Brazma and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023-11-16 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This accessible and entertaining book explores the fundamental connections between life and information and how they emerged inextricably linked, taking the reader on a journey through all the major evolutionary transitions. It records the entire path of how life's information has evolved, starting from the growing polymers of prelife leading to the first replicators, through RNA and DNA to neural networks and animal brains, continuing through the major transition of human language and writing, into computer clouds, and finally heading towards an unknown future. All currently known life is based on three classes of molecules: proteins - life's main structural and functional building blocks; DNA - life's information molecule; and RNA - a molecule that provides the link between these two. Despite the existence of language and the new means of information recording and processing it enabled, at the current stage of life's evolution, the information stored in the natural repository of our planet's DNA archive remains indispensable. If the DNA on Earth were to become seriously corrupted, all cultural information and life itself would soon disappear. However, does future life have to be reliant on these molecules or could a living organism be made of e.g. steel, rubber, copper, and silicon? What was life like when it first emerged on Earth billions of years ago? What will life be like millions or billions of years from now, if it still exists? Could future civilisations, including the possible heirs of the present one, persist without proteins, DNA, and RNA? The author arms the reader with the knowledge required to speculate about such questions in an informed and reasoned way. Living Computers is aimed at students and scholars in a wide range of disciplines, from physics, computing, and biology to social sciences and philosophy. The fascinating idea of life as a computational phenomenon will also appeal to a more general readership interested in our origins and future existence.
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.
Download or read book Living with Robots written by Ruth Aylett and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2021-09-21 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The truth about robots: two experts look beyond the hype, offering a lively and accessible guide to what robots can (and can't) do. There’s a lot of hype about robots; some of it is scary and some of it utopian. In this accessible book, two robotics experts reveal the truth about what robots can and can’t do, how they work, and what we can reasonably expect their future capabilities to be. It will not only make you think differently about the capabilities of robots; it will make you think differently about the capabilities of humans. Ruth Aylett and Patricia Vargas discuss the history of our fascination with robots—from chatbots and prosthetics to autonomous cars and robot swarms. They show us the ways in which robots outperform humans and the ways they fall woefully short of our superior talents. They explain how robots see, feel, hear, think, and learn; describe how robots can cooperate; and consider robots as pets, butlers, and companions. Finally, they look at robots that raise ethical and social issues: killer robots, sexbots, and robots that might be gunning for your job. Living with Robots equips readers to look at robots concretely—as human-made artifacts rather than placeholders for our anxieties. Find out: •Why robots can swim and fly but find it difficult to walk •Which robot features are inspired by animals and insects •Why we develop feelings for robots •Which human abilities are hard for robots to emulate
Download or read book My Mother Was a Computer written by N. Katherine Hayles and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2010-03-15 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We live in a world, according to N. Katherine Hayles, where new languages are constantly emerging, proliferating, and fading into obsolescence. These are languages of our own making: the programming languages written in code for the intelligent machines we call computers. Hayles's latest exploration provides an exciting new way of understanding the relations between code and language and considers how their interactions have affected creative, technological, and artistic practices. My Mother Was a Computer explores how the impact of code on everyday life has become comparable to that of speech and writing: language and code have grown more entangled, the lines that once separated humans from machines, analog from digital, and old technologies from new ones have become blurred. My Mother Was a Computer gives us the tools necessary to make sense of these complex relationships. Hayles argues that we live in an age of intermediation that challenges our ideas about language, subjectivity, literary objects, and textuality. This process of intermediation takes place where digital media interact with cultural practices associated with older media, and here Hayles sharply portrays such interactions: how code differs from speech; how electronic text differs from print; the effects of digital media on the idea of the self; the effects of digitality on printed books; our conceptions of computers as living beings; the possibility that human consciousness itself might be computational; and the subjective cosmology wherein humans see the universe through the lens of their own digital age. We are the children of computers in more than one sense, and no critic has done more than N. Katherine Hayles to explain how these technologies define us and our culture. Heady and provocative, My Mother Was a Computer will be judged as her best work yet.
Download or read book Hacking Life written by Joseph M. Reagle, Jr. and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2020-02-18 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In an effort to keep up with a world of too much, life hackers sometimes risk going too far. Life hackers track and analyze the food they eat, the hours they sleep, the money they spend, and how they're feeling on any given day. They share tips on the most efficient ways to tie shoelaces and load the dishwasher; they employ a tomato-shaped kitchen timer as a time-management tool.They see everything as a system composed of parts that can be decomposed and recomposed, with algorithmic rules that can be understood, optimized, and subverted. In Hacking Life, Joseph Reagle examines these attempts to systematize living and finds that they are the latest in a long series of self-improvement methods. Life hacking, he writes, is self-help for the digital age's creative class. Reagle chronicles the history of life hacking, from Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanack through Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and Timothy Ferriss's The 4-Hour Workweek. He describes personal outsourcing, polyphasic sleep, the quantified self movement, and hacks for pickup artists. Life hacks can be useful, useless, and sometimes harmful (for example, if you treat others as cogs in your machine). Life hacks have strengths and weaknesses, which are sometimes like two sides of a coin: being efficient is not the same thing as being effective; being precious about minimalism does not mean you are living life unfettered; and compulsively checking your vital signs is its own sort of illness. With Hacking Life, Reagle sheds light on a question even non-hackers ponder: what does it mean to live a good life in the new millennium?
