We are the Machine PDF Download
Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download We are the Machine PDF full book. Access full book title We are the Machine by Paul A. Youngman. Download full books in PDF and EPUB format.
Author: Paul A. Youngman
Publisher: Camden House
ISBN: 1571133925
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 189
Get Book Here
Book Description
An investigation of attitudes toward -- and unease with -- Information Technology, as reflected in recent German-language literature. Despite our embrace of the sheer utility and productivity it has made possible, the revolution in Information Technology has led to unease about its possible misuse, abuse, and even its eventual domination of humankind. That German culture is not immune to this sense of disquiet is reflected in a broad variety of German-language fiction since the 1940s. This first study of the literary reception of IT in German-speaking lands begins with an analysis of a seminal novel from the beginning of the computer age, Heinrich Hauser's Gigant Hirn (1948), then moves to its primary focus, the literature of the past two decades, ranging from Gerd Heidenreich's Die Nacht der Händler (1995) to Daniel Glattauer's novel Gut gegen Nordwind (2006). Along the way, it analyzes eleven works, including Barbara Frischmuth's novel Die Schrift des Freundes (1998), René Pollesch's drama world wide web-slums (2001), and Günter Grass's novella Im Krebsgang (2003). As wildly different in approach as these works are, each has much to offer this investigation of the imaginary border dividing the human from the technological, a lingering, centuries-old construct created to ease the anxiety that technology has given rise to throughout the ages. Paul A. Youngman is Associate Professor of German at the University of North Carolina-Charlotteand Director of the Center for Humanities, Technology, and Science.
Author: Paul A. Youngman
Publisher: Camden House
ISBN: 1571133925
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 189
Get Book Here
Book Description
An investigation of attitudes toward -- and unease with -- Information Technology, as reflected in recent German-language literature. Despite our embrace of the sheer utility and productivity it has made possible, the revolution in Information Technology has led to unease about its possible misuse, abuse, and even its eventual domination of humankind. That German culture is not immune to this sense of disquiet is reflected in a broad variety of German-language fiction since the 1940s. This first study of the literary reception of IT in German-speaking lands begins with an analysis of a seminal novel from the beginning of the computer age, Heinrich Hauser's Gigant Hirn (1948), then moves to its primary focus, the literature of the past two decades, ranging from Gerd Heidenreich's Die Nacht der Händler (1995) to Daniel Glattauer's novel Gut gegen Nordwind (2006). Along the way, it analyzes eleven works, including Barbara Frischmuth's novel Die Schrift des Freundes (1998), René Pollesch's drama world wide web-slums (2001), and Günter Grass's novella Im Krebsgang (2003). As wildly different in approach as these works are, each has much to offer this investigation of the imaginary border dividing the human from the technological, a lingering, centuries-old construct created to ease the anxiety that technology has given rise to throughout the ages. Paul A. Youngman is Associate Professor of German at the University of North Carolina-Charlotteand Director of the Center for Humanities, Technology, and Science.
Author: Arthur I. Miller
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262042851
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 429
Get Book Here
Book Description
An authority on creativity introduces us to AI-powered computers that are creating art, literature, and music that may well surpass the creations of humans. Today's computers are composing music that sounds “more Bach than Bach,” turning photographs into paintings in the style of Van Gogh's Starry Night, and even writing screenplays. But are computers truly creative—or are they merely tools to be used by musicians, artists, and writers? In this book, Arthur I. Miller takes us on a tour of creativity in the age of machines. Miller, an authority on creativity, identifies the key factors essential to the creative process, from “the need for introspection” to “the ability to discover the key problem.” He talks to people on the cutting edge of artificial intelligence, encountering computers that mimic the brain and machines that have defeated champions in chess, Jeopardy!, and Go. In the central part of the book, Miller explores the riches of computer-created art, introducing us to artists and computer scientists who have, among much else, unleashed an artificial neural network to create a nightmarish, multi-eyed dog-cat; taught AI to imagine; developed a robot that paints; created algorithms for poetry; and produced the world's first computer-composed musical, Beyond the Fence, staged by Android Lloyd Webber and friends. But, Miller writes, in order to be truly creative, machines will need to step into the world. He probes the nature of consciousness and speaks to researchers trying to develop emotions and consciousness in computers. Miller argues that computers can already be as creative as humans—and someday will surpass us. But this is not a dystopian account; Miller celebrates the creative possibilities of artificial intelligence in art, music, and literature.
Author: Mark O'Connell
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0385540426
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 221
Get Book Here
Book Description
“This gonzo-journalistic exploration of the Silicon Valley techno-utopians’ pursuit of escaping mortality is a breezy romp full of colorful characters.” —New York Times Book Review (Editor's Choice) Transhumanism is a movement pushing the limits of our bodies—our capabilities, intelligence, and lifespans—in the hopes that, through technology, we can become something better than ourselves. It has found support among Silicon Valley billionaires and some of the world’s biggest businesses. In To Be a Machine, journalist Mark O'Connell explores the staggering possibilities and moral quandaries that present themselves when you of think of your body as a device. He visits the world's foremost cryonics facility to witness how some have chosen to forestall death. He discovers an underground collective of biohackers, implanting electronics under their skin to enhance their senses. He meets a team of scientists urgently investigating how to protect mankind from artificial superintelligence. Where is our obsession with technology leading us? What does the rise of AI mean not just for our offices and homes, but for our humanity? Could the technologies we create to help us eventually bring us to harm? Addressing these questions, O'Connell presents a profound, provocative, often laugh-out-loud-funny look at an influential movement. In investigating what it means to be a machine, he offers a surprising meditation on what it means to be human.
Author: Julia Cook
Publisher: National Center for Youth Issues
ISBN: 1937870898
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 33
Get Book Here
Book Description
"My stomach feels like it's tied up in a knot. My knees lock up, and my face feels hot. You know what I mean? I'm Wilma Jean, The Worry Machine." Anxiety is a subjective sense of worry, apprehension, and/or fear. It is considered to be the number one health problem in America. Although quite common, anxiety disorders in children are often misdiagnosed and overlooked. Everyone feels fear, worry and apprehension from time to time, but when these feelings prevent a person from doing what he/she wants and/or needs to do, anxiety becomes a disability. This fun and humorous book addresses the problem of anxiety in a way that relates to children of all ages. It offers creative strategies for parents and teachers to use that can lessen the severity of anxiety. The goal of the book is to give children the tools needed to feel more in control of their anxiety. For those worries that are not in anyone's control (i.e. the weather) a worry hat is introduced. A fun read for Wilmas of all ages! Includes a note to parents and educators with tips on dealing with an anxious child.
Author: Paul Davies
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0241309603
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 297
Get Book Here
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.
Author: Amir Husain
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1501144677
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 224
Get Book Here
Book Description
Explores universal questions about humanity's capacity for living and thriving in the coming age of sentient machines and AI, examining debates from opposing perspectives while discussing emerging intellectual diversity and its potential role in enabling a positive life.
Author: Richard Seymour
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1788739310
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Get Book Here
Book Description
A brilliant probe into the political and psychological effects of our changing relationship with social media Former social media executives tell us that the system is an addiction-machine. We are users, waiting for our next hit as we like, comment and share. We write to the machine as individuals, but it responds by aggregating our fantasies, desires and frailties into data, and returning them to us as a commodity experience. The Twittering Machine is an unflinching view into the calamities of digital life: the circus of online trolling, flourishing alt-right subcultures, pervasive corporate surveillance, and the virtual data mines of Facebook and Google where we spend considerable portions of our free time. In this polemical tour de force, Richard Seymour shows how the digital world is changing the ways we speak, write, and think. Through journalism, psychoanalytic reflection and insights from users, developers, security experts and others, Seymour probes the human side of the machine, asking what we’re getting out of it, and what we’re getting into. Social media held out the promise that we could make our own history–to what extent did we choose the nightmare that it has become?
Author: Sinan Aral
Publisher: Currency
ISBN: 0525574522
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 417
Get Book Here
Book Description
A landmark insider’s tour of how social media affects our decision-making and shapes our world in ways both useful and dangerous, with critical insights into the social media trends of the 2020 election and beyond “The book might be described as prophetic. . . . At least two of Aral’s three predictions have come to fruition.”—New York NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY WIRED • LONGLISTED FOR THE PORCHLIGHT BUSINESS BOOK AWARD Social media connected the world—and gave rise to fake news and increasing polarization. It is paramount, MIT professor Sinan Aral says, that we recognize the outsize effect social media has on us—on our politics, our economy, and even our personal health—in order to steer today’s social technology toward its great promise while avoiding the ways it can pull us apart. Drawing on decades of his own research and business experience, Aral goes under the hood of the most powerful social networks to tackle the critical question of just how much social media actually shapes our choices, for better or worse. He shows how the tech behind social media offers the same set of behavior influencing levers to everyone who hopes to change the way we think and act—from Russian hackers to brand marketers—which is why its consequences affect everything from elections to business, dating to health. Along the way, he covers a wide array of topics, including how network effects fuel Twitter’s and Facebook’s massive growth, the neuroscience of how social media affects our brains, the real consequences of fake news, the power of social ratings, and the impact of social media on our kids. In mapping out strategies for being more thoughtful consumers of social media, The Hype Machine offers the definitive guide to understanding and harnessing for good the technology that has redefined our world overnight.
Author: Meghan O'Gieblyn
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0525562710
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Get Book Here
Book Description
A strikingly original exploration of what it might mean to be authentically human in the age of artificial intelligence, from the author of the critically-acclaimed Interior States. • "At times personal, at times philosophical, with a bracing mixture of openness and skepticism, it speaks thoughtfully and articulately to the most crucial issues awaiting our future." —Phillip Lopate “[A] truly fantastic book.”—Ezra Klein For most of human history the world was a magical and enchanted place ruled by forces beyond our understanding. The rise of science and Descartes's division of mind from world made materialism our ruling paradigm, in the process asking whether our own consciousness—i.e., souls—might be illusions. Now the inexorable rise of technology, with artificial intelligences that surpass our comprehension and control, and the spread of digital metaphors for self-understanding, the core questions of existence—identity, knowledge, the very nature and purpose of life itself—urgently require rethinking. Meghan O'Gieblyn tackles this challenge with philosophical rigor, intellectual reach, essayistic verve, refreshing originality, and an ironic sense of contradiction. She draws deeply and sometimes humorously from her own personal experience as a formerly religious believer still haunted by questions of faith, and she serves as the best possible guide to navigating the territory we are all entering.
Author: Jack Chabert
Publisher: Chapter Books
ISBN: 9781532142659
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Get Book Here
Book Description
Sam, Lucy, and Antonio have a new substitute teacher, who happens to be the great-great-grandson of Orson Eerie, the evil scientist whose spirit possesses and infects their elementary school--and the friends are afraid he may be trying to bring Orson back to life.
