Ghost Work

Ghost Work PDF Author: Mary L. Gray
Publisher: Eamon Dolan Books
ISBN: 1328566242
Category : BUSINESS & ECONOMICS
Languages : en
Pages : 297

Get Book

Book Description
"A startling exposé of the invisible human workforce that powers the web--and how to bring it out of the shadows. Hidden beneath the surface of the internet, a new, stark reality is looming--one that cuts to the very heart of our endless debates about the impact of AI. Anthropologist Mary L. Gray and computer scientist Siddharth Suri unveil how the services we use from companies like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Uber can only function smoothly thanks to the judgment and experience of a vast human labor force that is kept deliberately concealed. The people who do 'ghost work' make the internet seem smart. They perform high-tech, on-demand piecework: flagging X-rated content, proofreading, transcribing audio, confirming identities, captioning video, and much more. The shameful truth is that no labor laws protect them or even acknowledge their existence. They often earn less than legal minimums for traditional work, they have no health benefits, and they can be fired at any time for any reason, or for no reason at all. An estimated 8 percent of Americans have worked in this 'ghost economy,' and that number is growing every day. In this unprecedented investigation, Gray and Suri make the case that robots will never completely eliminate 'ghost work' and the unchecked quest for artificial intelligence could spark catastrophic work conditions if not stopped in its tracks. Ultimately, they show how this essential type of work can create opportunity--rather than misery--for those who do it."--Dust jacket.

Ghost Work

Ghost Work PDF Author: Mary L. Gray
Publisher: Eamon Dolan Books
ISBN: 1328566242
Category : BUSINESS & ECONOMICS
Languages : en
Pages : 297

Get Book

Book Description
"A startling exposé of the invisible human workforce that powers the web--and how to bring it out of the shadows. Hidden beneath the surface of the internet, a new, stark reality is looming--one that cuts to the very heart of our endless debates about the impact of AI. Anthropologist Mary L. Gray and computer scientist Siddharth Suri unveil how the services we use from companies like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Uber can only function smoothly thanks to the judgment and experience of a vast human labor force that is kept deliberately concealed. The people who do 'ghost work' make the internet seem smart. They perform high-tech, on-demand piecework: flagging X-rated content, proofreading, transcribing audio, confirming identities, captioning video, and much more. The shameful truth is that no labor laws protect them or even acknowledge their existence. They often earn less than legal minimums for traditional work, they have no health benefits, and they can be fired at any time for any reason, or for no reason at all. An estimated 8 percent of Americans have worked in this 'ghost economy,' and that number is growing every day. In this unprecedented investigation, Gray and Suri make the case that robots will never completely eliminate 'ghost work' and the unchecked quest for artificial intelligence could spark catastrophic work conditions if not stopped in its tracks. Ultimately, they show how this essential type of work can create opportunity--rather than misery--for those who do it."--Dust jacket.

The Ghost of Silicon Valley

The Ghost of Silicon Valley PDF Author: William D. Blankenship
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 0595132839
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 382

Get Book

Book Description
Can one of Silicon Valley’s premier software companies be haunted? “Impossible,” says Bobby Race, CEO of the company and a powerful force in the information industry. “Don’t be so sure,” counters Kevin Pierce, a talented but down-at-the-heels portrait artist who knows too well that supernatural life does exist. Kevin has been saddled for ten years with his own personal ghost— Sport Sullivan, a cynical, street-wise gambler murdered in 1920. Desperate to save his company from the embarrassment of a haunting, Bobby Race hires Kevin to rid the company of its ghost under the guise of painting Bobby’s portrait. The ghost appears to be Cynthia Gooding, a company employee who died in a suspicious “accident” at company headquarters. Along the way Kevin becomes involved with two very sharp, quite different career women. Dorothy Lake is an emotionally buttoned down genius programmer who wants Kevin more than she will admit. Jenny Hartson, executive secretary to the CEO, is a health and exercise fanatic who wants to break Kevin of his dependency on Carta Blanca beer. Throw in Izzy Valentine, a gangster trying to buy (or threaten) his way onto Bobby’s board of directors; Big Sam Cody, the best car thief in San Francisco; and Pure John Braggia, a thug with excellent manners. With the help of Sport Sullivan (an ethereal cousin to Dr. Watson), Kevin must walk through a mine field of these dangerous characters to uncover the reason Cynthia Gooding’s ghost is haunting the executive suites of Silicon Valley.

Abolish Silicon Valley

Abolish Silicon Valley PDF Author: Wendy Liu
Publisher: Watkins Media Limited
ISBN: 1912248719
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 235

Get Book

Book Description
Former insider turned critic Wendy Liu busts the myths of the tech industry, and offers a galvanising argument for why and how we must reclaim technology's potential for the public good. Former insider turned critic Wendy Liu busts the myths of the tech industry, and offers a galvanising argument for why and how we must reclaim technology's potential for the public good. "Lucid, probing and urgent. Wendy Liu manages to be both optimistic about the emancipatory potential of tech and scathing about the industry that has harnessed it for bleak and self-serving ends." -- Naomi Klein, author of On Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal "An inspiring memoir manifesto...Technologists all over the world are realizing that no amount of code can substitute for political engagement. Liu's memoir is a road map for that journey of realization." -- Cory Doctorow, author of Radicalized and Little Brother Innovation. Meritocracy. The possibility of overnight success. What's not to love about Silicon Valley? These days, it's hard to be unambiguously optimistic about the growth-at-all-costs ethos of the tech industry. Public opinion is souring in the wake of revelations about Cambridge Analytica, Theranos, and the workplace conditions of Amazon workers or Uber drivers. It's becoming clear that the tech industry's promised "innovation" is neither sustainable nor always desirable. Abolish Silicon Valley is both a heartfelt personal story about the wasteful inequality of Silicon Valley, and a rallying call to engage in the radical politics needed to upend the status quo. Going beyond the idiosyncrasies of the individual founders and companies that characterise the industry today, Wendy Liu delves into the structural factors of the economy that gave rise to Silicon Valley as we know it. Ultimately, she proposes a more radical way of developing technology, where innovation is conducted for the benefit of society at large, and not just to enrich a select few.

Geek Silicon Valley

Geek Silicon Valley PDF Author: Ashlee Vance
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0762751916
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 264

Get Book

Book Description
Silicon Valley veterans and newbies alike will want to explore this book that delves into the rich history behind the region that birthed the world's most important industry. Technology journalist Ashlee Vance has captured almost every aspect of the area stretching between San Francisco and San Jose, California, starting with the eager radio and electronics enthusiasts of the early 1900s and ending with the computing powerhouses of today such as Google and Apple. Along the way, the book profiles the people and places that have elevated Silicon Valley to an almost mythic pedestal. This book delivers Silicon Valley, taking us from success story to failed startup and back again as we drive the roads from San Francisco to Menlo Park, Palo Alto, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara and San Jose. It's full of profiles of the larger-than-life characters that pioneered the processor, computer, and Internet revolutions. The book's vibrant design includes "Silicon Valley Soundbytes" packed with insider information and trivia, and "Click Here" sidebars, which suggest places to eat, drink, and shop. Place by place, readers get the inside scoop on all the addresses that count, which include Microsoft research centers; the headquarters of Google, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Sun Microsystems, and Oracle; research powerhouses such as Stanford University, NASA Ames, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; the Computer History Museum and The Tech Museum; the Shoreline Amphitheater; the Churchill Club; and many more.

Seeing Silicon Valley

Seeing Silicon Valley PDF Author: Mary Beth Meehan
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022678648X
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 113

Get Book

Book Description
Also published in French as Visages de la Silicon Valley.

Hackers

Hackers PDF Author: Steven Levy
Publisher: "O'Reilly Media, Inc."
ISBN: 1449393748
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 432

Get Book

Book Description
This 25th anniversary edition of Steven Levy's classic book traces the exploits of the computer revolution's original hackers -- those brilliant and eccentric nerds from the late 1950s through the early '80s who took risks, bent the rules, and pushed the world in a radical new direction. With updated material from noteworthy hackers such as Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Richard Stallman, and Steve Wozniak, Hackers is a fascinating story that begins in early computer research labs and leads to the first home computers. Levy profiles the imaginative brainiacs who found clever and unorthodox solutions to computer engineering problems. They had a shared sense of values, known as "the hacker ethic," that still thrives today. Hackers captures a seminal period in recent history when underground activities blazed a trail for today's digital world, from MIT students finagling access to clunky computer-card machines to the DIY culture that spawned the Altair and the Apple II.

After On

After On PDF Author: Rob Reid
Publisher: Del Rey
ISBN: 1524798061
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 576

Get Book

Book Description
The definitive novel of today’s Silicon Valley, After On flash-captures our cultural and technological moment with up-to-the-instant savvy. Matters of privacy and government intrusion, post-Tinder romance, nihilistic terrorism, artificial consciousness, synthetic biology, and much more are tackled with authority and brash playfulness by New York Times bestselling author Rob Reid. Meet Phluttr—a diabolically addictive new social network and a villainess, heroine, enemy, and/or bestie to millions. Phluttr has ingested every fact and message ever sent to, from, and about her innumerable users. Her capabilities astound her makers—and they don’t even know the tenth of it. But what’s the purpose of this stunning creation? Is it a front for something even darker and more powerful than the NSA? A bid to create a trillion-dollar market by becoming “The UberX of Sex”? Or a reckless experiment that could spawn the digital equivalent of a middle-school mean girl with enough charisma, dirt, and cunning to bend the entire planet to her will? Phluttr has it in her to become the greatest gossip, flirt, or matchmaker in history. Or she could cure cancer, bring back Seinfeld, then start a nuclear war. Whatever she does, it’s not up to us. But a motley band of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and engineers might be able to influence her. After On achieves the literary singularity—fusing speculative satire and astonishing reality into a sharp-witted, ferociously believable, IMAX-wide view of our digital age. Praise for After On “Rob Reid’s mind is like no other known thing in the universe, and this book is a truly spectacular way to discover it.”—Chris Anderson, head of TED “An extended philosophy seminar run by a dozen insane Cold War heads-of-station, three millennial COOs and that guy you went to college with who always had the best weed but never did his laundry.”—NPR “An epic cyberthriller peppered with pop-culture references, metadata, and Silicon Valley in-jokes.”—Kirkus Reviews “It’s rare to find a book that combines laugh-out-loud humor and cutting-edge science with profound philosophical speculation. This is that book.”—Analog “[Rob Reid] writes in a humorous and sarcastic style while unveiling a terrifying and frightening scenario that seems all too real.”—Associated Press

Ghost Fleet

Ghost Fleet PDF Author: Peter Warren Singer
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0544142845
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 419

Get Book

Book Description
Two authorities on future warfare join forces to create a taut, convincing novel—set in 2026—about a besieged America battling for its very existence.

Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good

Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good PDF Author: Sarah Lacy
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9781592403820
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Get Book

Book Description
Traces the stories of entrepreneurs who rose from the ashes of the dot-com bust to create groundbreaking new Web companies, in an account that documents the success stories of such examples as Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube.

The Geography of Genius

The Geography of Genius PDF Author: Eric Weiner
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451691688
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 368

Get Book

Book Description
Tag along on this New York Times bestselling “witty, entertaining romp” (The New York Times Book Review) as Eric Winer travels the world, from Athens to Silicon Valley—and back through history, too—to show how creative genius flourishes in specific places at specific times. In this “intellectual odyssey, traveler’s diary, and comic novel all rolled into one” (Daniel Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness), acclaimed travel writer Weiner sets out to examine the connection between our surroundings and our most innovative ideas. A “superb travel guide: funny, knowledgeable, and self-deprecating” (The Washington Post), he explores the history of places like Vienna of 1900, Renaissance Florence, ancient Athens, Song Dynasty Hangzhou, and Silicon Valley to show how certain urban settings are conducive to ingenuity. With his trademark insightful humor, this “big-hearted humanist” (The Wall Street Journal) walks the same paths as the geniuses who flourished in these settings to see if the spirit of what inspired figures like Socrates, Michelangelo, and Leonardo remains. In these places, Weiner asks, “What was in the air, and can we bottle it?” “Fun and thought provoking” (Miami Herald), The Geography of Genius reevaluates the importance of culture in nurturing creativity and “offers a practical map for how we can all become a bit more inventive” (Adam Grant, author of Originals).