Download or read book Schism written by Bill Granger and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2014-07-29 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The November Man returns... After twenty years in the Cambodian jungle, Father Leo Tunney has staggered out--with a secret of global importance. What does Father Leo Tunney know? Washington, Moscow, Vatican City and an international bank want to find out--at any cost. So does a cool, clever U.S. agent: Deveraux--code name, the "November Man." And one other: A beautiful young journalist who has her own way of prying answers from a tortured priest...a woman who might outwit them all...or become the ultimate pawn in a deadly game that could destroy the balance of world power!

Download or read book Schism written by Paul Blustein and published by McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. This book was released on 2019-09-10 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001 was heralded as historic, and for good reason: the world's most populous nation was joining the rule-based system that has governed international commerce since World War II. But the full ramifications of that event are only now becoming apparent, as the Chinese economic juggernaut has evolved in unanticipated and profoundly troublesome ways. In this book, journalist Paul Blustein chronicles the contentious process resulting in China's WTO membership and the transformative changes that followed, both good and bad - for China, for its trading partners, and for the global trading system as a whole. The book recounts how China opened its markets and underwent far-reaching reforms that fuelled its economic takeoff, but then adopted policies - a cheap currency and heavy-handed state intervention - that unfairly disadvantaged foreign competitors and circumvented WTO rules. Events took a potentially catastrophic turn in 2018 with the eruption of a trade war between China and the United States, which has brought the trading system to a breaking point. Regardless of how the latest confrontation unfolds, the world will be grappling for decades with the challenges posed by China Inc.

Download or read book By Schism Rent Asunder written by David Weber and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2008-07-22 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The sequel to the New York Times best seller Off Armageddon Reef The world has changed. The mercantile kingdom of Charis has prevailed over the alliance designed to exterminate it. Armed with better sailing vessels, better guns and better devices of all sorts, Charis faced the combined navies of the rest of the world at Darcos Sound and Armageddon Reef, and broke them. Despite the implacable hostility of the Church of God Awaiting, Charis still stands, still free, still tolerant, still an island of innovation in a world in which the Church has worked for centuries to keep humanity locked at a medieval level of existence. But the powerful men who run the Church aren't going to take their defeat lying down. Charis may control the world's seas, but it barely has an army worthy of the name. And as King Cayleb knows, far too much of the kingdom's recent good fortune is due to the secret manipulations of the being that calls himself Merlin-a being that, the world must not find out too soon, is more than human. A being on whose shoulders rests the last chance for humanity's freedom. Now, as Charis and its archbishop make the rift with Mother Church explicit, the storm gathers. Schism has come to the world of Safehold. Nothing will ever be the same... in David Weber's By Schism Rent Asunder. Safehold Series 1. Off Armageddon Reef 2. By Schism Rent Asunder 3. By Heresies Distressed 4. A Mighty Fortress 5. How Firm A Foundation 6. Midst Toil and Tribulation 7. Like A Mighty Army 8. Hell's Foundations Quiver 9. At the Sign of Triumph At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Download or read book The AI Conundrum written by Caleb Briggs and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2024-08-06 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A timely, practical guide to AI—its strengths, weaknesses, and real-world applications—for business professionals and policymakers. Artificial intelligence, or AI, can recognize a pattern from any set of data it is given, which is what makes it such an extraordinarily powerful tool. But because not all patterns are authentic or reliable, AI’s pattern-finding superpower can lead to spurious patterns—and to disastrous results for business and government entities that rely on them. Hence the conundrum at the heart of AI: its greatest strength can also be its greatest weakness. Targeting the businessperson who needs to know how to use AI profitably and responsibly, Caleb Briggs and Rex Briggs offer in this book a foundational understanding of AI that is easy to grasp yet thorough enough to be used effectively. The AI Conundrum: • Draws on the authors’ diverse expertise—in pure math, computer science, marketing, data science, and business—to make AI concepts and applications approachable for readers of all tech levels. • Provides a framework for comparing AI to the next best alternative, and for gauging where AI is likely be successful—or to pose greater risk than benefits. • Includes dozens of real-world case studies highlighting the successes and failures of AI applications across various industries. • Offers actionable insights for responsible implementation and risk mitigation. • Provides a worksheet for identifying potential problem areas, a cost-benefit analysis, and a companion website. The AI Conundrum is an invaluable resource for professionals and students seeking a full understanding of AI—its applications, limitations, and ethical considerations—as we enter a brave new era.

Download or read book Incarnate Schism written by Thomas Harper and published by Thomas Harper. This book was released on 2020-10-09 with total page 618 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nineteen years after the events of Incarnate: Essence, Eshe finds himself reincarnated again. This time, because of the experimentations on Eshe’s brain, there are two reincarnations: Ivan Volkov and Samira Zahedi. Ivan, embracing the nihilism of his reincarnation and the crumbling of human society, has abandoned any hope of creating a better future. Instead, Ivan settles into a life of hedonism as a member of a brutal eastern Russian gang obsessed with death known as Bessmernyi. An assignment that takes Ivan into war-torn China will drag him back into contact with Imelda, the reincarnation of Jiang Wei. The other incarnation, Samira Zahedi, was reborn in Iran where she has become a leader in a local Forty-Eights group. The group attempts to look into the Sovereign corporation’s strange black sites in the region all the while maintaining a fragile peace amongst violent factions that sprung up after Israel nuked Iran and then began occupying it. During a radiation storm caused by the nuclear fallout, people in Isfahan are mysteriously murdered. While Samira unravels the meaning of these murders, the Immortal Legion, the African liberation group started by Sachi, begins to erupt out of Africa, conquering the Middle East. Once again, savage warfare, uncanny technology, corporate greed, religious extremists, and human augmentation are drastically altering the world that Ivan and Samira must navigate while attempting to ensure a tolerable future. Although unable to truly die, neither Ivan nor Samira will ever be the same.

Download or read book A Brief History of Artificial Intelligence written by Michael Wooldridge and published by Flatiron Books. This book was released on 2021-01-19 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Oxford's leading AI researcher comes a fun and accessible tour through the history and future of one of the most cutting edge and misunderstood field in science: Artificial Intelligence The somewhat ill-defined long-term aim of AI is to build machines that are conscious, self-aware, and sentient; machines capable of the kind of intelligent autonomous action that currently only people are capable of. As an AI researcher with 25 years of experience, professor Mike Wooldridge has learned to be obsessively cautious about such claims, while still promoting an intense optimism about the future of the field. There have been genuine scientific breakthroughs that have made AI systems possible in the past decade that the founders of the field would have hailed as miraculous. Driverless cars and automated translation tools are just two examples of AI technologies that have become a practical, everyday reality in the past few years, and which will have a huge impact on our world. While the dream of conscious machines remains, Professor Wooldridge believes, a distant prospect, the floodgates for AI have opened. Wooldridge's A Brief History of Artificial Intelligence is an exciting romp through the history of this groundbreaking field--a one-stop-shop for AI's past, present, and world-changing future.

Download or read book Understanding Religion Through Artificial Intelligence written by Justin E. Lane and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-05-06 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Understanding Religion through Artificial Intelligence, Justin E. Lane looks at the reasons why humans feel they are part of a religious group, despite often being removed from other group members by vast distances or multiple generations. To achieve this, Lane offers a new perspective that integrates religious studies with psychology, anthropology, and data science, as well as with research at the forefront of Artificial Intelligence (AI). After providing a critical analysis of approaches to religion and social cohesion, Lane proposes a new model for religious studies, which he calls the “Information Identity System.” This model focuses on the idea of conceptual ties: links between an individual's self-concept and the ancient beliefs of their religious group. Lane explores this idea through real-world examples, ranging from the rise in global Pentecostalism, to religious extremism and self-radicalization, to the effect of 9/11 on sermons. Lane uses this lens to show how we can understand religion and culture today, and how we can better contextualize the changes we see in the social world around us.

Download or read book Handbook on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence written by David J. Gunkel and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2024-07-05 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This engaging Handbook identifies and critically examines the moral opportunities and challenges typically attributed to artificial intelligence. It provides a comprehensive overview and examination of the most pressing and urgent problems with this technology by drawing on a wide range of analytical methods, traditions, and approaches.

Download or read book AI Ethics written by Mark Coeckelbergh and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2020-02-05 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This overview of the ethical issues raised by artificial intelligence moves beyond hype and nightmare scenarios to address concrete questions—offering a compelling, necessary read for our ChatGPT era. Artificial intelligence powers Google’s search engine, enables Facebook to target advertising, and allows Alexa and Siri to do their jobs. AI is also behind self-driving cars, predictive policing, and autonomous weapons that can kill without human intervention. These and other AI applications raise complex ethical issues that are the subject of ongoing debate. This volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series offers an accessible synthesis of these issues. Written by a philosopher of technology, AI Ethics goes beyond the usual hype and nightmare scenarios to address concrete questions. Mark Coeckelbergh describes influential AI narratives, ranging from Frankenstein’s monster to transhumanism and the technological singularity. He surveys relevant philosophical discussions: questions about the fundamental differences between humans and machines and debates over the moral status of AI. He explains the technology of AI, describing different approaches and focusing on machine learning and data science. He offers an overview of important ethical issues, including privacy concerns, responsibility and the delegation of decision making, transparency, and bias as it arises at all stages of data science processes. He also considers the future of work in an AI economy. Finally, he analyzes a range of policy proposals and discusses challenges for policymakers. He argues for ethical practices that embed values in design, translate democratic values into practices and include a vision of the good life and the good society.

Download or read book Artificial Intelligence written by Michael Wooldridge and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2018-03-22 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'I propose to consider the question, 'Can machines think?' Alan Turing (1950) Part of the ALL-NEW Ladybird Expert series. This book is for everyone living in the age of Artificial Intelligence. And this is an accessible and authoritative introduction to one of the most important conversations of our time . . . Written by computer scientist Michael Wooldridge, Artificial Intelligence chronicles the development of intelligent machines, from Turing's dream of machines that think, to today's digital assistants like Siri and Alexa. AI is not something that awaits us in the future. Inside you'll learn how we have come to rely on embedded AI software and what a world of ubiquitous AI might look like. What's inside? - The British mathematician Alan Turing - Can machines 'understand'? - Logical and Behavioural AI - The reality of AI today - AI tomorrow - And much more . . . For an adult readership, the Ladybird Expert series is produced in the same iconic small hardback format pioneered by the original Ladybirds. Each beautifully illustrated book features the first new illustrations produced in the original Ladybird style for nearly forty years.

Download or read book Goddess in the Machine written by Lora Beth Johnson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-07-27 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A smart, thrilling sci-fi adventure, perfect for fans of Renegades and Aurora Rising. When Andra wakes up, she's drowning. Not only that, but she's in a hot, dirty cave, it's the year 3102, and everyone keeps calling her Goddess. When Andra went into a cryonic sleep for a trip across the galaxy, she expected to wake up in a hundred years, not a thousand. Worst of all, the rest of the colonists--including her family and friends--are dead. They died centuries ago, and for some reason, their descendants think Andra's a deity. She knows she's nothing special, but she'll play along if it means she can figure out why she was left in stasis and how to get back to Earth. Zhade, the exiled bastard prince of Eerensed, has other plans. Four years ago, the sleeping Goddess's glass coffin disappeared from the palace, and Zhade devoted himself to finding it. Now he's hoping the Goddess will be the key to taking his rightful place on the throne--if he can get her to play her part, that is. Because if his people realize she doesn't actually have the power to save their dying planet, they'll kill her. With a vicious monarch on the throne and a city tearing apart at the seams, Zhade and Andra might never be able to unlock the mystery of her fate, let alone find a way to unseat the king, especially since Zhade hasn't exactly been forthcoming with Andra. And a thousand years from home, is there any way of knowing that Earth is better than the planet she's woken to?

Download or read book American Schism written by Seth David Radwell and published by Greenleaf Book Group. This book was released on 2021-06-29 with total page 594 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An enlightened exploration of history to unite a deeply divided America The political dialogue in America has collapsed. Raw and bitter emotions such as anger and resentment have crowded out any logical debate. In this investigative tracing of our nation’s divergent roots, author Seth David Radwell explains that only reasoned analysis and historical perspective can act as salves for the irrational political discourse that is raging at present. Two disparate Americas have always coexisted, and Radwell discovered that the surprising origin of these dual Americas was not an Enlightenment, but two distinct Enlightenments that have been fiercely competing since the founding of our country. Radwell argues that it is only by embracing Enlightenment principles that we can build a civilized, progressive, and tolerant society. American Schism reveals • the roots of the rifts in America since its founding and what is really dividing red and blue America; • the core issues that underlie all of today’s bickering; • a detailed, effective plan to move forward, commencing what will be a long process of repair and reconciliation. Seth David Radwell changes the nature of the political debate by fighting unreason with reason, allowing Americans to firmly ground their differing points of view in rationality.

Download or read book The West in Russia and China written by Donald W. Treadgold and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1973-05-24 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Planet in Peril Planetary Dangers Planetary Solutions written by Michael D. Bess and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-10-13 with total page 453 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by an award-winning historian of science and technology, Planet in Peril describes the top four mega-dangers facing humankind – climate change, nukes, pandemics, and artificial intelligence. It outlines the solutions that have been tried, and analyzes why they have thus far fallen short. These four existential dangers present a special kind of challenge that urgently requires planet-level responses, yet today's international institutions have so far failed to meet this need. The book lays out a realistic pathway for gradually modifying the United Nations over the coming century so that it can become more effective at coordinating global solutions to humanity's problems. Neither optimistic nor pessimistic, but pragmatic and constructive, the book explores how to move past ideological polarization and global political fragmentation. Unafraid to take intellectual risks, Planet in Peril sketches a plausible roadmap toward a safer, more democratic future for us all.

Download or read book Planet in Peril written by Michael D. Bess and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-10-13 with total page 453 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploration of the top four mega-dangers facing humankind and plots a hopeful path to dealing with them through global governance.

Download or read book Artificial Intelligence for a Sustainable Industry 4 0 written by Shashank Awasthi and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-10-21 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book outlines the recent advancements in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and addresses how useful it is in achieving truly sustainable solutions. The book also serves as a useful reference literature in developing sustainable engineering solutions to various social and techno-commercial issues of global significance. This book is organized into two sections: section 1 is focused on fundamentals and principles of AI to lay the groundwork for the second section. Section 2 explores the sustainable engineering solutions development using AI, which addresses challenges in various computing techniques and opportunities in engineering design for sustainable development using IoT/AI and smart cities. Applications include waste minimization, re-manufacturing, reuse and recycling technologies using IoT/AI, Industry 4.0, intelligent and smart grid systems, energy conservation using technology, and robotic process automation (RPA). The book is ideal for the engineers, researchers and students interested in how AI can aid in sustainable development applications.

Download or read book Knowing our World An Artificial Intelligence Perspective written by George F. Luger and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-07-02 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Knowing our World: An Artificial Intelligence Perspective considers the methodologies of science, computation, and artificial intelligence to explore how we humans come to understand and operate in our world. While humankind’s history of articulating ideas and building machines that can replicate the activity of the human brain is impressive, Professor Luger focuses on understanding the skills that enable these goals. Based on insights afforded by the challenges of AI design and program building, Knowing our World proposes a foundation for the science of epistemology. Taking an interdisciplinary perspective, the book demonstrates that AI technology offers many representational structures and reasoning strategies that support clarification of these epistemic foundations. This monograph is organized in three Parts; the first three chapters introduce the reader to the foundations of computing and the philosophical background that supports the AI tradition. These three chapters describe the origins of AI, programming as iterative refinement, and the representations and very high-level language tools that support AI application building. The book’s second Part introduces three of the four paradigms that represent research and development in AI over the past seventy years: the symbol-based, connectionist, and complex adaptive systems. Luger presents several introductory programs in each area and demonstrates their use. The final three chapters present the primary theme of the book: bringing together the rationalist, empiricist, and pragmatist philosophical traditions in the context of a Bayesian world view. Luger describes Bayes' theorem with a simple proof to demonstrate epistemic insights. He describes research in model building and refinement and several philosophical issues that constrain the future growth of AI. The book concludes with his proposal of the epistemic stance of an active, pragmatic, model-revising realism.