Smoke & Mirrors
How Hype Obscures the Future and How to See Past It
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Narrated by:
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Gemma Milne
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By:
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Gemma Milne
About this listen
Robots will steal your job!
AI will revolutionise farming!
Genetic editing will cure cancer!
Bombastic headlines about science and technology are nothing new. To cut through the constant stream of information and misinformation on social media, or grab the attention of investors, or convince governments to take notice, strident headlines or bold claims seem necessary to give complex, nuanced information some wow factor.
But hype has a dark side, too.
It can mislead. It can distract. It can blinker us from seeing what is actually going on.
From AI, quantum computing and brain implants, to cancer drugs, future foods and fusion energy, science and technology journalist, Gemma Milne, reveals hype to be responsible for fundamentally misdirecting or even derailing crucial progress.
Hype can be combated and discounted, though, if you're able to see exactly where, how, and why it is being deployed.
This audiobook is your guide to doing just that.
©2020 Gemma Milne (P)2020 Hachette Audio UKListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"A much-needed blast of fresh air! Gemma Milne expertly shows us how to separate the truth from the hype surrounding the emerging techs of today, and those of the near-tomorrow." (Lewis Dartnell, author of Origins: How the Earth Made Us)
"I loved this book! This is exactly the sort of sceptical, cut-through-the crap-but-still-excited-about-what's-emerging book around tech innovation that's sorely needed, yet is so hard to find...essential reading for anyone who's serious about how real-world advances might be effectively harnessed to build a better future." (Dr Andrew Maynard, scientist and author of Films from the Future and Future Rising)
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What to Do When Machines Do Everything
- How to Get Ahead in a World of AI, Algorithms, Bots, and Big Data
- By: Malcolm Frank, Paul Roehrig, Ben Pring
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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What to Do When Machines Do Everything is a guidebook to succeeding in the next generation of the digital economy. When systems running on artificial intelligence can drive our cars, diagnose medical patients, and manage our finances more effectively than humans, it raises profound questions on the future of work and how companies compete.
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Assumes that machine learning will grow very slow
- By Nathan Burnham on 05-06-17
By: Malcolm Frank, and others
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Fossil Future
- Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas—Not Less
- By: Alex Epstein
- Narrated by: Alex Epstein
- Length: 16 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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For over a decade, philosopher and energy expert Alex Epstein has predicted that any negative impacts of fossil fuel use on our climate will be outweighed by the unique benefits of fossil fuels to human flourishing--including their unrivaled ability to provide low-cost, reliable energy to billions of people around the world, especially the world’s poorest people. And contrary to what we hear from media “experts” about today’s “renewable revolution” and “climate emergency,” reality has proven Epstein right.
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Strongly Recommend
- By Kevin on 06-14-22
By: Alex Epstein
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Whiplash
- How to Survive Our Faster Future
- By: Joi Ito, Jeff Howe
- Narrated by: James Foster
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Today, not only is everything digital getting faster, cheaper, and smaller at an exponential rate, we also have the Internet. When these two revolutions - one in technology and the other in communications - joined, an explosive force was unleashed that changed the very nature of innovation. And with any change, we have seen many strategic blunders and extraordinary learning curves along the way.
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Just general advice on how to survive
- By A. Yoshida on 09-01-17
By: Joi Ito, and others
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Age of Discovery
- Navigating the Risks and Rewards of Our New Renaissance
- By: Ian Goldin, Chris Kutarna
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Age of Discovery explores a world on the brink of a new Renaissance and asks: how do we share more widely the benefits of unprecedented progress? How do we endure the inevitable tumult generated by accelerating change? How do we each thrive through this tangled, uncertain time? From gains in health, education, wealth and technology to crises of conflict, disease and mass migration, the similarities between today's world and that of the 15th century are both striking and prophetic: we have been here before.
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A monotonous text disguised as casual reading.
- By Rob on 07-29-16
By: Ian Goldin, and others
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AI Superpowers
- China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order
- By: Kai-Fu Lee
- Narrated by: Mikael Naramore
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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In AI Superpowers, Kai-fu Lee argues powerfully that because of these unprecedented developments in AI, dramatic changes will be happening much sooner than many of us expected. Indeed, as the US-Sino AI competition begins to heat up, Lee urges the US and China to both accept and to embrace the great responsibilities that come with significant technological power.
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Compelled to listen at 2x speed
- By LEE on 09-26-18
By: Kai-Fu Lee
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How Soon Is Now
- From Personal Initiation to Global Transformation
- By: Daniel Pinchbeck
- Narrated by: Nathan Osgood
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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The world needs to change. We have unleashed an ecological mega-crisis which is threatening the future of life on Earth. The actions we take over the next decade are critical. They will determine the destiny of our descendants and the fate of our world. How Soon Is Now presents a compelling manifesto for personal and planetary change. It proposes a revolutionary new narrative for a unified social movement. Through global cooperation, we can face this collective threat ecologically, socially, politically and spiritually.
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Relevant!!!!
- By Anonymous User on 12-11-23
By: Daniel Pinchbeck
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The Zero Marginal Cost Society
- The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism
- By: Jeremy Rifkin
- Narrated by: David Cochran Heath
- Length: 14 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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In this provocative new book, Rifkin argues that the coming together of the Communication Internet with the fledgling Energy Internet and Logistics Internet in a seamless twenty-first-century intelligent infrastructure—the Internet of Things—is boosting productivity to the point where the marginal cost of producing many goods and services is nearly zero, making them essentially free.
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Not a convincing argument-just stories & ideology
- By Pierre Parent on 07-26-17
By: Jeremy Rifkin
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Radical Abundance
- How a Revolution in Nanotechnology Will Change Civilization
- By: K. Eric Drexler
- Narrated by: Tim Pabon
- Length: 11 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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K. Eric Drexler is the founding father of nanotechnology - the science of engineering on a molecular level. In Radical Abundance, he shows how rapid scientific progress is about to change our world. Thanks to atomically precise manufacturing, we will soon have the power to produce radically more of what people want, and at a lower cost. The result will shake the very foundations of our economy and environment.
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Drexler Rehashes the Past
- By David on 10-19-13
By: K. Eric Drexler
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Adapt
- Why Success Always Starts with Failure
- By: Tim Harford
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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In this groundbreaking work, Tim Harford shows us a new and inspiring approach to solving the most pressing problems in our lives. Harford argues that today’s challenges simply cannot be tackled with ready-made solutions and expert opinions; the world has become far too unpredictable and profoundly complex. Instead, we must adapt. Deftly weaving together psychology, evolutionary biology, anthropology, physics, and economics, along with compelling stories of hard-won lessons learned in the field, Harford makes a passionate case for the importance of adaptive trial-and-error....
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Hidden Agenda
- By Lawrence on 05-20-13
By: Tim Harford
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Power and Prediction
- The Disruptive Economics of Artificial Intelligence
- By: Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans, Avi Goldfarb
- Narrated by: Tom Beyer
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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In their bestselling first book, Prediction Machines, eminent economists Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans, and Avi Goldfarb explained the simple yet game-changing economics of AI. Now, in Power and Prediction, they go deeper, examining the most basic unit of analysis: the decision. The authors explain that the two key decision-making ingredients are prediction and judgment, and we perform both together in our minds, often without realizing it.
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Inspire system thinking with informative examples
- By Lucy A. Pithecus on 11-16-22
By: Ajay Agrawal, and others
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Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper
- How Innovation Keeps Proving the Catastrophists Wrong
- By: Robert Bryce
- Narrated by: Steven Menasche
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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In this provocative and optimistic rebuke to the catastrophists, Robert Bryce shows how innovation and the inexorable human desire to make things Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper is providing consumers with Cheaper and more abundant energy, Faster computing, Lighter vehicles, and myriad other goods. That same desire is fostering unprecedented prosperity, greater liberty, and yes, better environmental protection.
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I thought I was getting a book on the future.
- By Grant on 08-02-14
By: Robert Bryce
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Jump-Starting America
- How Breakthrough Science Can Revive Economic Growth and the American Dream
- By: Jonathan Gruber, Simon Johnson
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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The untold story of how America once created the most successful economy the world has ever seen and how we can do it again.
By: Jonathan Gruber, and others