
Superconvergence
How the Genetics, Biotech, and AI Revolutions Will Transform our Lives, Work, and World
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Narrated by:
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James Anderson Foster
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Jamie Metzl
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By:
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Jamie Metzl
About this listen
A bold, inspiring, and multi-disciplinary exploration of cutting-edge human knowledge and capabilities—and how to harness their awesome, but terrifying potential
In Superconvergence, leading futurist and OneShared.World founder Jamie Metzl explores how genome sequencing, gene editing, artificial intelligence, and other technologies are not only changing our lives, but catalyzing each other in radical and accelerating ways. These technologies have the potential to improve our health, feed billions of people, supercharge our economies, and store essential information for millions of years, but can also—if we are not careful—do immeasurable harm.
The challenge we face is that while the ability to engineer the world around us is advancing exponentially, our processes for understanding the scope, scale, and implications of these changes is only increasing linearly and our capacity to govern our godlike capabilities wisely is only inching forward glacially. Luckily, in Jamie Metzl we have a thinker who has followed this phenomenon for decades and who integrates science, history, politics, and international affairs to envision a future that many specialists, almost by definition, cannot see. In Superconvergence, Metzl gives us the definitive account of the technological precipice on which we stand and the map to where we go from here.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2024 Jamie Metzl (P)2024 Timber PressListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“In Superconvergence, Jamie Metzl takes readers on a magical journey through the science of the intersecting genetics, biotech, and AI revolutions, deeply explores the implications, and challenges us to think creatively and proactively about what comes next. Very few books are absolute must-reads. This is one.”—Siddhartha Mukherjee, assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University and author of The Gene: An Intimate History
"During the 25 years I have known Jamie Metzl, he has always been ahead of the curve. There is no one better to help us understand and prepare for the fast approaching technological revolutions. Superconvergence is brilliant. I can't recommend it more strongly."—Sanjay Gupta MD, bestseller author, neurosurgeon, and Emmy-award winning chief medical correspondent (CNN)
"Our world is defined by our science and technology—whether we like it or not. The question now is not whether to use these powers, but how best to use them. In Superconvergence, Jamie Metzl takes us on a journey of the new capabilities that are radically transforming ecosystems inside us and around us, challenging each of us to get personally involved with building the future we want."—Beth Shapiro, University of California Santa Cruz evolutionary biologist and author of Life as We Made It: How 50,000 Years of Human Innovation Refined—and Redefined—Nature
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Performance
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Within the next five years, Jeremy Kahn predicts, AI will disrupt almost every industry and enterprise, with vastly increased efficiency and productivity. It will restructure the workforce, making AI copilots a must for every knowledge worker. It will compel us to reimagine how we make art, compose music, and write and publish books. The potential of generative AI to extend our skills, talents, and creativity as humans is undeniably exciting and promising. But while this new technology has a bright future, it also casts a dark and fearful shadow.
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Worth the read
- By Richard Heimann on 09-16-24
By: Jeremy Kahn
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Our Next Reality
- How the AI-Powered Metaverse Will Reshape the World
- By: Alvin Wang Graylin, Louis Rosenberg, Neal Stephenson - foreword
- Narrated by: Ciaran Saward
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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We are entering a new technological age in which artificial intelligence and immersive media will transform society at all levels, mediating our lives by altering what we see, hear, and experience. If managed well, this could unleash a new age of abundance. If managed poorly, this technological revolution could easily go astray, compromising our privacy, autonomy, agency, and humanity. Two industry veterans provide a data-driven debate on whether the new world we're creating will be a technological utopia or an AI-powered dystopia and give guidance on how to aim for the best future we can.
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The vision is strong with this one!
- By Olivier on 10-22-24
By: Alvin Wang Graylin, and others
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The New Empire of AI
- The Future of Global Inequality
- By: Rachel Adams
- Narrated by: Harrie Dobby
- Length: 7 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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As AI takes hold across the planet and wealthy nations seek to position themselves as global leaders of this new technology, the gap is widening between those who benefit from it and those who are subjugated by it. As Rachel Adams shows in this hard-hitting book, growing inequality is the single biggest threat to the transformative potential of AI. Not only is AI built on an unequal global system of power, it stands poised to entrench existing inequities, further consolidating a new age of empire.
By: Rachel Adams
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The Secret Language of Cells
- What Biological Conversations Tell Us About the Brain-Body Connection, the Future of Medicine, and Life Itself
- By: Jon Lieff MD
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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While cells are commonly considered the building block of living things, it is actually the communication between cells that brings us to life, controlling our bodies and brains, determining whether we are healthy or sick, and directly influencing how we think, feel, and behave. In The Secret Language of Cells, doctor and neuroscientist Jon Lieff lets us listen in on these conversations, and reveals their significance for everything from mental health to cancer.
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top notch!
- By Amazon Customer on 10-11-20
By: Jon Lieff MD
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On Xi Jinping
- How Xi's Marxist Nationalism Is Shaping China and the World
- By: Kevin Rudd
- Narrated by: Kevin Rudd
- Length: 21 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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In On Xi Jinping, former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd provides an authoritative account of the ideological worldview driving Chinese behaviour both domestically and on the world stage—that of President Xi Jinping, who now holds near-total control over the Chinese Communist Party and is now, in effect, president-for-life. Rudd argues that Xi’s worldview differs significantly from those of the leaders who preceded him, and that this ideological shift is reflected in the real world of Chinese policy and behaviour.
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Informed research with deep insights, but very hard to follow.
- By Josh Carter on 02-18-25
By: Kevin Rudd
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From Breakthrough to Blockbuster
- The Business of Biotechnology
- By: Donald L. Drakeman, Lisa N. Drakeman, Nektarios Oraiopoulos
- Narrated by: Chris Andrew Ciulla
- Length: 7 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Beginning in the 1970s, several scientific breakthroughs promised to transform the creation of new medicines. As investors sought to capitalize on these Nobel Prize-winning discoveries, the biotech industry grew to thousands of small companies around the world. Each sought to emulate what the major pharmaceutical companies had been doing for a century or more, but without the advantages of scale, scope, experience, and massive resources. From Breakthrough to Blockbuster focuses on both the companies themselves and the broader biotech ecosystem that supports them.
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Nothing to learn for pharma professionals
- By Anonymous User on 09-12-23
By: Donald L. Drakeman, and others
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Enemy at the Gates
- The Battle for Stalingrad
- By: William Craig
- Narrated by: David Baker
- Length: 13 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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On August 5, 1942, giant pillars of dust rose over the Russian steppe, marking the advance of the 6th Army, an elite German combat unit dispatched by Hitler to capture the industrial city of Stalingrad and press on to the oil fields of Azerbaijan. The Germans were supremely confident; in three years, they had not suffered a single defeat. The Luftwaffe had already bombed the city into ruins. German soldiers hoped to complete their mission and be home in time for Christmas.
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An Unforgettable and Haunting Read
- By Jean on 02-03-16
By: William Craig
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The Deadly Rise of Anti-Science
- A Scientist's Warning
- By: Peter J. Hotez MD PhD
- Narrated by: Graham Winton
- Length: 6 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, one renowned scientist, in his famous bowtie, appeared daily on major news networks such as MSNBC, NPR, the BBC, and others. Dr. Peter J. Hotez often went without sleep, working around the clock to develop a nonprofit COVID-19 vaccine and to keep the public informed. During that time, he was one of the most trusted voices on the pandemic and was even nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for his selfless work. He also became one of the main targets of anti-science rhetoric that gained traction through conservative news media.
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The Truth Be Told!
- By Placeholder on 01-14-24
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The AI Mirror
- How to Reclaim Our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking
- By: Shannon Vallor
- Narrated by: Kim Niemi
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Shannon Vallor makes a wide-ranging, prophetic, and philosophical case for what AI could be: a way to reclaim our human potential for moral and intellectual growth, rather than lose ourselves in mirrors of the past. Rejecting prophecies of doom, she encourages us to pursue technology that helps us recover our sense of the possible, and with it the confidence and courage to repair a broken world. Vallor calls us to rethink what AI is and can be, and what we want to be with it.
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Timely But Incomplete
- By Amazon Customer on 12-30-24
By: Shannon Vallor
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Dark Aeon
- Transhumanism and the War Against Humanity
- By: Joe Allen
- Narrated by: Dave Clark
- Length: 16 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Like a thief in the night, artificial intelligence has inserted itself into our lives. It makes important decisions for us every day. Often, we barely notice. As Joe Allen writes in this groundbreaking book, “Transhumanism is the great merger of humankind with the Machine. At this stage in history, it consists of billions using smartphones. Going forward, we’ll be hardwiring our brains to artificial intelligence systems.” With an academic background in both science and theology, Allen confronts the paradox of what he calls “good people constructing a digital abomination.”
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maintaining humanity in the digital Era
- By scott novak on 01-03-24
By: Joe Allen
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Genomics
- A Very Short Introduction
- By: John M. Archibald
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 4 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Genomics has transformed the biological sciences. From epidemiology and medicine to evolution and forensics, the ability to determine an organism's complete genetic makeup has changed the way science is done and the questions that can be asked of it. John Archibald explores the science of genomics and its rapidly expanding toolbox. Archibald tells us how the field of genomics is on the cusp of another quantum leap; the implications for science and society are profound.
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Superb introduction
- By ImStillThinking on 07-18-20
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Immune
- A Journey into the Mysterious System That Keeps You Alive
- By: Philipp Dettmer
- Narrated by: Steve Taylor
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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You wake up and feel a tickle in your throat. Your head hurts. You’re mildly annoyed as you get the kids ready for school and dress for work yourself. Meanwhile, an epic war is being fought, just below your skin. Millions are fighting and dying for you to be able to complain as you head out the door. So what, exactly, is your immune system? In Immune, Philipp Dettmer, the brains behind the most popular science channel on YouTube, takes listeners on a journey through the fortress of the human body and its defenses.
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Steve Taylor for the win
- By Bay Area Engineer on 11-02-21
By: Philipp Dettmer
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Deep Utopia
- Life and Meaning in a Solved World
- By: Nick Bostrom
- Narrated by: David Timson
- Length: 20 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Bostrom’s previous book, Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies (OUP, 2014) sparked a global conversation on AI that continues to this day. That book, which became a surprise New York Times bestseller, focused on what might happen if AI development goes wrong. But what if things go right? Suppose we develop superintelligence safely and ethically, and that we make good use of the almost magical powers this technology would unlock.
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In incredibly entertaining presentation
- By Richard Dean on 03-11-25
By: Nick Bostrom
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The Invention of Surgery
- A History of Modern Medicine: From the Renaissance to the Implant Revolution
- By: David Schneider MD
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 23 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Written by an author with plenty of experience holding a scalpel, Dr. David Schneider's in-depth biography is an encompassing history of the practice that has leapt forward over the centuries from the dangerous guesswork of ancient Greek physicians through the world-changing implant revolution of the 20th century.
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Joint dysfunction in need of excision
- By scott corron on 09-05-20
Some good insight, fails to integrate human nature
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Very informative!
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Great Book Somewhat Spoiled by Self-Promotion
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Great book that explains how AI, biology, and our most important challenges are all coming together
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Leaves a mark
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I'll trust humanity here. Rug Bergman's HUMANKIND is accepted, I am told is accepted in sciences universally.
I believe Earth is at a watershed for earthmen. Prestigious ones are taking out the angry/dominant man. It seems to me we are all connected.
Live long and prosper UN
Convergence, cool man.
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Very arrogant author and many groundless claims
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Lot of genetics, minimal Al
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