The Power of the Machine

The Power of the Machine PDF Author: Alf Hornborg
Publisher: Rowman Altamira
ISBN: 0759116911
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Hornborg argues that we are caught in a collective illusion about the nature of modern technology that prevents us from imagining solutions to our economic and environmental crises other than technocratic fixes. He demonstrates how the power of the machine generates increasingly asymmetrical exchanges and distribution of resources and risks between distant populations and ecosystems, and thus an increasingly polarized world order. The author challenges us to reconceptualize the machine—'industrial technomass'—as a species of power and a problem of culture. He shows how economic anthropology has the tools to deconstruct the concepts of production, money capital, and market exchange, and to analyze capital accumulation as a problem at the very interface of the natural and social sciences. His analysis provides an alternative understanding of economic growth and technological development. Hornborg's work is essential for researchers in anthropology, human ecology, economics, political economy, world-systems theory, environmental justice, and science and technology studies. Find out more about the author at the Lund University, Sweden web site.

The Power of the Machine

The Power of the Machine PDF Author: Alf Hornborg
Publisher: Rowman Altamira
ISBN: 0759116911
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Get Book

Book Description
Hornborg argues that we are caught in a collective illusion about the nature of modern technology that prevents us from imagining solutions to our economic and environmental crises other than technocratic fixes. He demonstrates how the power of the machine generates increasingly asymmetrical exchanges and distribution of resources and risks between distant populations and ecosystems, and thus an increasingly polarized world order. The author challenges us to reconceptualize the machine—'industrial technomass'—as a species of power and a problem of culture. He shows how economic anthropology has the tools to deconstruct the concepts of production, money capital, and market exchange, and to analyze capital accumulation as a problem at the very interface of the natural and social sciences. His analysis provides an alternative understanding of economic growth and technological development. Hornborg's work is essential for researchers in anthropology, human ecology, economics, political economy, world-systems theory, environmental justice, and science and technology studies. Find out more about the author at the Lund University, Sweden web site.

The Power of the Machine

The Power of the Machine PDF Author: Robert Angus Buchanan
Publisher: Penguin Group USA
ISBN: 9780140170634
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
By far the most important single factor in world history has been the process of technological revolution whereby small-scale agricultural societies have been transformed into massive industrialized and urbanized communities. This development has occurred over a long period of time, but its greatest thrust has been concentrated over the last two centuries, beginning in the West, in Europe and North America, and then spreading through the rest of the world. The author systematically analyses this process, showing how increasing mastery over sources of power provided increased industrial and agricultural productivity, and created radically new methods of transport and communication. He then examines the impact of these technical achievements on society, paying special attention to the political and ecological consequences of a vastly increased world population, the facilities for rapid transport and instantaneous communication, and the possession of weapons of immense destructive force.

The Power of the Machine

The Power of the Machine PDF Author: Alf Hornborg
Publisher: Rowman Altamira
ISBN: 9780759100671
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
Hornborg argues that we are caught in a collective illusion about the nature of modern technology that prevents us from imagining solutions to our economic and environmental crises other than technocratic fixes. He demonstrates how the power of the machine generates increasingly asymmetrical exchanges and distribution of resources and risks between distant populations and ecosystems, and thus an increasingly polarized world order. The author challenges us to reconceptualize the machine--"industrial technomass"--as a species of power and a problem of culture. He shows how economic anthropology has the tools to deconstruct the concepts of production, money capital, and market exchange, and to analyze capital accumulation as a problem at the very interface of the natural and social sciences. His analysis provides an alternative understanding of economic growth and technological development. Hornborg's work is essential for researchers in anthropology, human ecology, economics, political economy, world-systems theory, environmental justice, and science and technology studies. Find out more about the author at the Lund University, Sweden web site.

Blood in the Machine

Blood in the Machine PDF Author: Brian Merchant
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 0316487732
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 545

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Book Description
"The most important book to read about the AI boom" (Wired): The "gripping" (New Yorker) true story of the first time machines came for human jobs—and how the Luddite uprising explains the power, threat, and toll of big tech and AI today Named one of the best books of the year by The New Yorker, Wired, and the Financial Times • A Next Big Idea Book Club "Must-Read" The most urgent story in modern tech begins not in Silicon Valley but two hundred years ago in rural England, when workers known as the Luddites rose up rather than starve at the hands of factory owners who were using automated machines to erase their livelihoods. The Luddites organized guerrilla raids to smash those machines—on punishment of death—and won the support of Lord Byron, enraged the Prince Regent, and inspired the birth of science fiction. This all-but-forgotten class struggle brought nineteenth-century England to its knees. Today, technology imperils millions of jobs, robots are crowding factory floors, and artificial intelligence will soon pervade every aspect of our economy. How will this change the way we live? And what can we do about it? The answers lie in Blood in the Machine. Brian Merchant intertwines a lucid examination of our current age with the story of the Luddites, showing how automation changed our world—and is shaping our future.

The Machine

The Machine PDF Author: Lee Fang
Publisher: The New Press
ISBN: 1595586393
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
Before Obama took the oath of office after his historic victory, lobbyists, political hacks, oil tycoons and right-wing politicians had planned his political demise. The massive conservative infrastructure created by business groups beginning in the 1970s would not be sufficient, they concluded: in the age of Obama, something new had to be done. Written by the blogger who was the first to report on the lobbyists who staged the Tea Parties, here is a groundbreaking expose of the plans to make America conservative again.

The Demon in the Machine

The Demon in the Machine PDF Author: Paul Davies
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0241309603
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
'A gripping new drama in science ... if you want to understand how the concept of life is changing, read this' Professor Andrew Briggs, University of Oxford When Darwin set out to explain the origin of species, he made no attempt to answer the deeper question: what is life? For generations, scientists have struggled to make sense of this fundamental question. Life really does look like magic: even a humble bacterium accomplishes things so dazzling that no human engineer can match it. And yet, huge advances in molecular biology over the past few decades have served only to deepen the mystery. So can life be explained by known physics and chemistry, or do we need something fundamentally new? In this penetrating and wide-ranging new analysis, world-renowned physicist and science communicator Paul Davies searches for answers in a field so new and fast-moving that it lacks a name, a domain where computing, chemistry, quantum physics and nanotechnology intersect. At the heart of these diverse fields, Davies explains, is the concept of information: a quantity with the power to unify biology with physics, transform technology and medicine, and even to illuminate the age-old question of whether we are alone in the universe. From life's murky origins to the microscopic engines that run the cells of our bodies, The Demon in the Machine is a breath-taking journey across the landscape of physics, biology, logic and computing. Weaving together cancer and consciousness, two-headed worms and bird navigation, Davies reveals how biological organisms garner and process information to conjure order out of chaos, opening a window on the secret of life itself.

Machine Learning and Data Science in the Power Generation Industry

Machine Learning and Data Science in the Power Generation Industry PDF Author: Patrick Bangert
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 0128226005
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
Machine Learning and Data Science in the Power Generation Industry explores current best practices and quantifies the value-add in developing data-oriented computational programs in the power industry, with a particular focus on thoughtfully chosen real-world case studies. It provides a set of realistic pathways for organizations seeking to develop machine learning methods, with a discussion on data selection and curation as well as organizational implementation in terms of staffing and continuing operationalization. It articulates a body of case study–driven best practices, including renewable energy sources, the smart grid, and the finances around spot markets, and forecasting. Provides best practices on how to design and set up ML projects in power systems, including all nontechnological aspects necessary to be successful Explores implementation pathways, explaining key ML algorithms and approaches as well as the choices that must be made, how to make them, what outcomes may be expected, and how the data must be prepared for them Determines the specific data needs for the collection, processing, and operationalization of data within machine learning algorithms for power systems Accompanied by numerous supporting real-world case studies, providing practical evidence of both best practices and potential pitfalls

Heart of the Machine

Heart of the Machine PDF Author: Richard Yonck
Publisher: Arcade
ISBN: 195069111X
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
For Readers of Ray Kurzweil and Michio Kaku, a New Look at the Cutting Edge of Artificial Intelligence Imagine a robotic stuffed animal that can read and respond to a child’s emotional state, a commercial that can recognize and change based on a customer’s facial expression, or a company that can actually create feelings as though a person were experiencing them naturally. Heart of the Machine explores the next giant step in the relationship between humans and technology: the ability of computers to recognize, respond to, and even replicate emotions. Computers have long been integral to our lives, and their advances continue at an exponential rate. Many believe that artificial intelligence equal or superior to human intelligence will happen in the not-too-distance future; some even think machine consciousness will follow. Futurist Richard Yonck argues that emotion, the first, most basic, and most natural form of communication, is at the heart of how we will soon work with and use computers. Instilling emotions into computers is the next leap in our centuries-old obsession with creating machines that replicate humans. But for every benefit this progress may bring to our lives, there is a possible pitfall. Emotion recognition could lead to advanced surveillance, and the same technology that can manipulate our feelings could become a method of mass control. And, as shown in movies like Her and Ex Machina, our society already holds a deep-seated anxiety about what might happen if machines could actually feel and break free from our control. Heart of the Machine is an exploration of the new and inevitable ways in which mankind and technology will interact. The paperback edition has a new foreword by Rana el Kaliouby, PhD, a pioneer in artificial emotional intelligence, as well as the cofounder and CEO of Affectiva, the acclaimed AI startup spun off from the MIT Media Lab.

The Perpetual Motion Machine

The Perpetual Motion Machine PDF Author: Brittany Ackerman
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781597096911
Category : BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Languages : en
Pages : 152

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Book Description
Inspired by a brother's high school science project--a perpetual motion machine that could save the world-- The Perpetual Motion Machine is a memoir in essays that attempts to save a sibling by depicting the visceral pain that accompanies longing for some past impossibility. The collection has been a science project in its study of memory, in the calculation and plotting of the moments that make up a childhood. The preparation has been "in the field" in that it is built upon the gathering of lived experience; the evidence is photo albums, family interviews, and anecdotes from friends. The project has been one giant experiment--to see if they can all make it out alive.

Mind Over Machine

Mind Over Machine PDF Author: Hubert Dreyfus
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0743205510
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Human intuition and perception are basic and essential phenomena of consciousness. As such, they will never be replicated by computers. This is the challenging notion of Hubert Dreyfus, Ph. D., archcritic of the artificial intelligence establishment. It's important to emphasize that he doesn't believe that AI is fundamentally impossible, only that the current research program is fatally flawed. Instead, he argues that to get a device (or devices) with human-like intelligence would require them to have a human-like being in the world, which would require them to have bodies more or less like ours, and social acculturation (i.e. a society) more or less like ours. This helps to explain the practical problems in implementing artificial intelligence algorithms.