Technology Vs. Humanity

Author: Gerd Leonhard
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780993295829
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

Book Description
Futurist Gerd Leonhard breaks new ground again by bringing together mankind's urge to upgrade and automate everything-down to human biology itself-with our timeless quest for freedom and happiness. Before it's too late, we must stop and ask the big questions: How do we embrace technology without becoming it? When it happens-gradually, then suddenly-the machine era will create the greatest watershed in human life on Earth. Technology vs. Humanity is one of the last moral maps we'll get as humanity enters the Jurassic Park of Big Tech. Artificial intelligence. Cognitive computing. The Singularity. Digital obesity. Printed food. The Internet of Things. The death of privacy. The end of work-as-we-know-it, and radical longevity: The imminent clash between technology and humanity is already rushing towards us. What moral values are you prepared to stand up for-before being human alters its meaning forever? Gerd Leonhard is a new kind of futurist schooled in the humanities as much as in technology. In his most provocative book to date, he explores the exponential changes swamping our societies, providing rich insights and deep wisdom for business leaders, professionals and anyone with decisions to make in this new era. If you take being human for granted, press Reset now with this passionately argued call to create a genuinely braver new world.

Living in Data

Author: Jer Thorp
Publisher: MCD
ISBN: 0374720517
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Book Description
Jer Thorp’s analysis of the word “data” in 10,325 New York Times stories written between 1984 and 2018 shows a distinct trend: among the words most closely associated with “data,” we find not only its classic companions “information” and “digital,” but also a variety of new neighbors—from “scandal” and “misinformation” to “ethics,” “friends,” and “play.” To live in data in the twenty-first century is to be incessantly extracted from, classified and categorized, statisti-fied, sold, and surveilled. Data—our data—is mined and processed for profit, power, and political gain. In Living in Data, Thorp asks a crucial question of our time: How do we stop passively inhabiting data, and instead become active citizens of it? Threading a data story through hippo attacks, glaciers, and school gymnasiums, around colossal rice piles, and over active minefields, Living in Data reminds us that the future of data is still wide open, that there are ways to transcend facts and figures and to find more visceral ways to engage with data, that there are always new stories to be told about how data can be used. Punctuated with Thorp's original and informative illustrations, Living in Data not only redefines what data is, but reimagines who gets to speak its language and how to use its power to create a more just and democratic future. Timely and inspiring, Living in Data gives us a much-needed path forward.

The Future of Business

Author: Rohit Talwar
Publisher: Fast Future Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 0993295819
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 577

Book Description
The Future of Business explores how the commercial world is being transformed by the complex interplay between social, economic and political shifts, disruptive ideas, bold strategies and breakthroughs in science and technology. Over 60 contributors from 21 countries explore how the business landscape will be reshaped by factors as diverse as the modification of the human brain and body, 3D printing, alternative energy sources, the reinvention of government, new business models, artificial intelligence, blockchain technology, and the potential emergence of the Star Trek economy.

#EdJourney

Author: Grant Lichtman
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118898583
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 61

Book Description
Your formula for managing innovation and transforming learning #EdJourney: A Roadmap to the Future of Education is a refreshing change from the negativity so common in the world of education today. Over the course of a 3-month solo road trip across the United States, author Grant Lichtman discovered that there is much to be positive about in today's K-12 schools. Lichtman, one of the country's leading experts in educational innovation, interviewed over 600 teachers, administrators, students, parents, and trustees to find out what kind of innovations they're doing right—and how others can leverage their successes. Innovation in education takes hard work, planning, and cooperation. With examples from around the country and findings from the latest education research, #EdJourney maps out how administrators and teachers can embrace the innovation process that schools and learners need now. Today's 21st century education presents unique challenges and opportunities to students, and this is a trailblazing practical guide to making sure education is ready for the future. #EdJourney focuses on four key questions: What new learning strategies are the top schools implementing to prepare our students for their future rather than for our past? How do teachers and administrators manage transitions to new types of teaching and learning? What are the key obstacles to shifting away from the assembly line model of education? How can we all leverage the lessons of success from the most innovative schools? The concrete examples and advice in this book will help you bring innovation and educational design concepts into your school. #EdJourney goes beyond the theoretical need for change—by now a familiar topic to almost everyone—and takes a real-world approach to achieving transformative education in any school.

The Singularity Is Near

Author: Ray Kurzweil
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101218886
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 992

Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Celebrated futurist Ray Kurzweil, hailed by Bill Gates as “the best person I know at predicting the future of artificial intelligence,” presents an “elaborate, smart, and persuasive” (The Boston Globe) view of the future course of human development. “Artfully envisions a breathtakingly better world.”—Los Angeles Times “Startling in scope and bravado.”—Janet Maslin, The New York Times “An important book.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer At the onset of the twenty-first century, humanity stands on the verge of the most transforming and thrilling period in its history. It will be an era in which the very nature of what it means to be human will be both enriched and challenged as our species breaks the shackles of its genetic legacy and achieves inconceivable heights of intelligence, material progress, and longevity. While the social and philosophical ramifications of these changes will be profound, and the threats they pose considerable, The Singularity Is Near presents a radical and optimistic view of the coming age that is both a dramatic culmination of centuries of technological ingenuity and a genuinely inspiring vision of our ultimate destiny.

The Singularity Is Nearer

Author: Ray Kurzweil
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0399562761
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 433

Book Description
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ONE OF TIME’S 100 MOST INFLUENTUAL PEOPLE IN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE The noted inventor and futurist’s successor to his landmark book The Singularity Is Near explores how technology will transform the human race in the decades to come Since it was first published in 2005, Ray Kurzweil’s The Singularity Is Near and its vision of an exponential future have spawned a worldwide movement. Kurzweil's predictions about technological advancements have largely come true, with concepts like AI, intelligent machines, and biotechnology now widely familiar to the public. In this entirely new book Ray Kurzweil brings a fresh perspective to advances toward the Singularity—assessing his 1999 prediction that AI will reach human level intelligence by 2029 and examining the exponential growth of technology—that, in the near future, will expand human intelligence a millionfold and change human life forever. Among the topics he discusses are rebuilding the world, atom by atom with devices like nanobots; radical life extension beyond the current age limit of 120; reinventing intelligence by connecting our brains to the cloud; how exponential technologies are propelling innovation forward in all industries and improving all aspects of our well-being such as declining poverty and violence; and the growth of renewable energy and 3-D printing. He also considers the potential perils of biotechnology, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence, including such topics of current controversy as how AI will impact employment and the safety of autonomous cars, and "After Life" technology, which aims to virtually revive deceased individuals through a combination of their data and DNA. The culmination of six decades of research on artificial intelligence, The Singularity Is Nearer is Ray Kurzweil’s crowning contribution to the story of this science and the revolution that is to come.

Team Human

Author: Douglas Rushkoff
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393651703
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 151

Book Description
Porchlight’s Management and Workplace Culture Book of The Year “[A] thoroughly fascinating exploration of the long interplay between power and the technologies of communication.” —Adam Frank, NPR Team Human is a manifesto—a fiery distillation of preeminent digital theorist Douglas Rushkoff’s most urgent thoughts on civilization and human nature. In one hundred lean and incisive statements, he argues that we are essentially social creatures, and that we achieve our greatest aspirations when we work together—not as individuals. Yet today society is threatened by a vast antihuman infrastructure that undermines our ability to connect. Money, once a means of exchange, is now a means of exploitation; education, conceived as way to elevate the working class, has become another assembly line; and the internet has only further divided us into increasingly atomized and radicalized groups. Team Human delivers a call to arms. If we are to resist and survive these destructive forces, we must recognize that being human is a team sport. In Rushkoff’s own words: “Being social may be the whole point.” Harnessing wide-ranging research on human evolution, biology, and psychology, Rushkoff shows that when we work together we realize greater happiness, productivity, and peace. If we can find the others who understand this fundamental truth and reassert our humanity—together—we can make the world a better place to be human.

Future Shock

Author: Alvin Toffler
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0593159470
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 625

Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The classic work that predicted the anxieties of a world upended by rapidly emerging technologies—and now provides a road map to solving many of our most pressing crises. “Explosive . . . brilliantly formulated.” —The Wall Street Journal Future Shock is the classic that changed our view of tomorrow. Its startling insights into accelerating change led a president to ask his advisers for a special report, inspired composers to write symphonies and rock music, gave a powerful new concept to social science, and added a phrase to our language. Published in over fifty countries, Future Shock is the most important study of change and adaptation in our time. In many ways, Future Shock is about the present. It is about what is happening today to people and groups who are overwhelmed by change. Change affects our products, communities, organizations—even our patterns of friendship and love. But Future Shock also illuminates the world of tomorrow by exploding countless clichés about today. It vividly describes the emerging global civilization: the rise of new businesses, subcultures, lifestyles, and human relationships—all of them temporary. Future Shock will intrigue, provoke, frighten, encourage, and, above all, change everyone who reads it.

The Future of Music

Author: David Kusek
Publisher: Berklee Press Publications
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 216

Book Description
From the Music Research Institute at Berklee College of Music comes a manifesto for the ongoing music revolution. Today the record companies may be hurting, but the music making business is booming, using non-traditional digital methods and distribution models. This book explains why we got where we are and where we are heading. Kusek and Leonhard foresee the disappearance of CDs and record stores as we know them in the next decade. For the iPod, downloading market, this book will explain new ways of discovering music, new ways of acquiring it and how technology trends will make music "flow like water", benefiting the people who love music and make music.

The Artificial Ape

Author: Timothy Taylor
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 023010973X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Book Description
A breakthrough theory that tools and technology are the real drivers of human evolution Although humans are one of the great apes, along with chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans, we are remarkably different from them. Unlike our cousins who subsist on raw food, spend their days and nights outdoors, and wear a thick coat of hair, humans are entirely dependent on artificial things, such as clothing, shelter, and the use of tools, and would die in nature without them. Yet, despite our status as the weakest ape, we are the masters of this planet. Given these inherent deficits, how did humans come out on top? In this fascinating new account of our origins, leading archaeologist Timothy Taylor proposes a new way of thinking about human evolution through our relationship with objects. Drawing on the latest fossil evidence, Taylor argues that at each step of our species' development, humans made choices that caused us to assume greater control of our evolution. Our appropriation of objects allowed us to walk upright, lose our body hair, and grow significantly larger brains. As we push the frontiers of scientific technology, creating prosthetics, intelligent implants, and artificially modified genes, we continue a process that started in the prehistoric past, when we first began to extend our powers through objects. Weaving together lively discussions of major discoveries of human skeletons and artifacts with a reexamination of Darwin's theory of evolution, Taylor takes us on an exciting and challenging journey that begins to answer the fundamental question about our existence: what makes humans unique, and what does that mean for our future?