Showing titles in Technology & Society

In The Unintended Consequences of Technology: Solutions, Breakthroughs and the Restart We Need, accomplished tech entrepreneur Chris Ategeka delivers an insightful and eye-opening exploration of the challenges and the opportunities at the intersection of technology, society, and our planet.

The celebrated author of The Making of Second Life and Game Design Secrets Wagner, James Au, delivers an engrossing exploration of how nascent metaverse platforms have already captured the imagination of millions. Featuring powerful stories and dozens of incisive interviews with insiders including Metaverse creator Neal Stephenson himself, the author uses his unique, grassroots-level perspective as the first reporter embedded in a metaverse platform.

Wise Animals explores the history of our relationship with technology, pointing out that we have been deeply involved with our creations from the first use of tools and the taming of fire, via the invention of reading and printing, to the development of the computer and the creation of the internet.

Technology rules us as much as laws do. It shapes the legal, social, and ethical environments in which we act. Every time we cross a street, drive a car, or go to the doctor, we submit to the silent power of technology. Yet, much of the time, the influence of technology on our lives goes unchallenged by citizens and our elected representatives. Our embrace of novel technological pathways, Sheila Jasanoff shows, leads to a complex interplay among technology, ethics, and human rights.

Whether you called it electro, indie dance, or were too busy scouring the internet for MP3s to care about a genre name, Never Be Alone Again: How Bloghouse United the Internet and the Dancefloor connects the disparate parts of an under-documented era in the first book focused on the musical and cultural phenomenon called bloghouse.

In today's technology-dependent world, the Internet has become a legal but lethal weapon against the privacy and reputations of its users. Based on Sue Scheff's landmark Internet defamation case, which gave a face to online harassment, cyberbulling, privacy invasion, and Google bombs, and stirred Internet regulation and free-speech debates, Google Bomb arms listeners with information, legal advice, and reputation-defense tips.

Free and open source is the foundation of software development, and it's built by people just like you. Discover the fundamental tenets that drive the movement. Take control of your career by selecting the right project to meet your professional goals. Master the language and avoid the pitfalls that typically ensnare new contributors. Join a community of like-minded people and change the world. Programmers, writers, designers, and everyone interested in software will make their mark through free and open source software contributions.

In 1979, Elizabeth Eisenstein provided the first full-scale treatment of the 15th-century printing revolution in the West in her monumental two-volume work, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change. This abridged edition, after summarizing the initial changes introduced by the establishment of printing shops, goes on to discuss how printing challenged traditional institutions and affected three major cultural movements: the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the rise of modern science.

In this vivid, deeply-reported book, Matt Stroud shows that our new policing tools are overhyped and ineffective. Instead of wrestling with tough fundamental questions about their work, police leaders have looked to technology as a silver bullet, and stood by as corporate interests have insinuated themselves ever deeper into the public institution of law enforcement. With a sweeping history of these changes, Thin Blue Lie is a must-listen for anyone seeking to understand how policing became what it is today.

In Democratizing Artificial Intelligence to Benefit Everyone, Dr. Jacques Ludik takes us on a holistic sense-making journey to synthesize and better our understanding of AI, its applications, its benefits, its risks, its limitations, its progress, and its likely future paths. As a founder of multiple AI companies with three decades of experience in AI and its world-wide applications, Dr. Ludik's audiobook offers specific solutions that address designing for social good, building human-compatible AI, and so many more ideas for reshaping civilization for beneficial outcomes!

A new approach to the challenges surrounding artificial intelligence that argues for assessing AI actions as if they came from a human being.

In this provocative book, Ramesh Srinivasan describes the internet as both an enabler of frictionless efficiency and a dirty tangle of politics, economics, and other inefficient, inharmonious human activities. We may love the immediacy of Google search results, the convenience of Amazon, and the elegance of our Apple devices, but it’s a one-way, top-down process. We’re not asked for our input or our opinions - only for our data. The internet is brought to us by wealthy technologists in Silicon Valley and China. Srinivasan argues that we must think in terms beyond the Valley.

Flash crashes. Speed dating. Instant messaging. From the devices we carry to the lives we lead, everything is getting faster, faster. But where did this great acceleration come from? And where will it lead? In this vitally important new audiobook, Robert Colvile explains how the cult of disruption in Silicon Valley, the ceaseless advance of technology and our own fundamental appetite for novelty and convenience have combined to speed up every aspect of daily life.

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. Drawing upon real-world cases, data, and insight, the authors provide clear strategic guidance and actionable steps to help you and your organization move ahead in a world where exponentially developing new technologies are changing how value is created.

An exhilarating, elegant memoir and a significant polemic on how computers and algorithms shape our understanding of the world and of who we are. Bitwise is a wondrous ode to the computer languages and codes that captured technologist David Auerbach's imagination.

We have been underselling the future. In fact, the future will be neither dystopia nor utopia (which is an actively harmful dichotomy) - it will be what we do the work to make it. And the best way to the brightest future is to focus on what we can do, and make sure we are working to get there. Kate O’Neill, author of Tech Humanist and Pixels and Place, explores the ways we have already begun to solve human problems at scale, and makes the case for an approach that’s both hopeful and strategic as our best chance at a truly bright future.

In Cyber War…and Peace, Nick Shevelyov shares how lessons learned from history’s most poignant moments reveal strategies to help manage risk in today’s — and tomorrow’s — digital landscape. Nick’s insight and analysis will introduce you to concepts that will increase resiliency within your organization, no matter its size. This exploration of history, strategy, and the digital world around us will challenge you to reexamine the past, solve new problems, and embrace timeless techniques.

Nobody meant for this to happen. Facebook didn't mean to facilitate a genocide. Twitter didn't want to be used to harass women. YouTube never planned to radicalise young men. But with billions of users, these platforms need only tweak their algorithms to generate more 'engagement'. In so doing, they bring unrest to previously settled communities and erode our relationships. Social warming has happened gradually - as a by-product of our preposterously convenient digital existence.

A fascinating guided tour of the complex, fast-moving, and influential world of algorithms - what they are, why they’re such powerful predictors of human behavior, and where they’re headed next. Algorithms exert an extraordinary level of influence on our everyday lives - from dating websites and financial trading floors, through to online retailing and internet searches - Google's search algorithm is now a more closely guarded commercial secret than the recipe for Coca-Cola.

Surveillance Capitalism in America offers a crucial historical perspective on the intimate relationship between surveillance and capitalism. While surveillance is often associated with governments, today the role of the private sector in the spread of everyday surveillance is the subject of growing public debate. Tech giants like Google and Facebook are fueled by a continuous supply of user data and digital exhaust. Surveillance is not just a side effect of digital capitalism; it is the business model itself.