Machines That Become Us

Machines That Become Us PDF Author: James E. Katz
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351508024
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
Social critics and artificial intelligence experts have long prophesized that computers and robots would soon relegate humans to the dustbin of history. Many among the general population seem to have shared this fear of a dehumanized future. But how are people in the twenty-first century actually reacting to the ever-expanding array of gadgets and networks at their disposal? Is computer anxiety a significant problem, paralyzing and terrorizing millions, or are ever-proliferating numbers of gadgets being enthusiastically embraced? Machines that Become Us explores the increasingly intimate relationship between people and their personal communication technologies.In the first book of its kind, internationally recognized scholars from the United States and Europe explore this topic. Among the technologies analyzed include the Internet, personal digital assistants (PDAs), mobile phones, networked homes, smart fabrics and wearable computers, interactive location badges, and implanted monitoring devices. The authors discuss critical policy issues, such as the problems of information resource access and equity, and the recently discovered digital dropouts phenomena.The use of the word become in the book's title has three different meanings. The first suggests how people use these technologies to broaden their abilities to communicate and to represent themselves to others. Thus the technologies become extensions and representatives of the communicators. A second sense of become applies to analysis of the way these technologies become physically integrated with the user's clothing and even their bodies. Finally, contributors examine fashion aspects and uses of these technologies, that is, how they are used in ways becoming to the wearer. The conclusions of many chapters are supported by data, including ethnographic observations, attitude surveys and case studies from the United States, Britain, France, Italy, Finland, and Norway. This approach is especially valuable

Machines That Become Us

Machines That Become Us PDF Author: James E. Katz
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351508024
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 366

Get Book Here

Book Description
Social critics and artificial intelligence experts have long prophesized that computers and robots would soon relegate humans to the dustbin of history. Many among the general population seem to have shared this fear of a dehumanized future. But how are people in the twenty-first century actually reacting to the ever-expanding array of gadgets and networks at their disposal? Is computer anxiety a significant problem, paralyzing and terrorizing millions, or are ever-proliferating numbers of gadgets being enthusiastically embraced? Machines that Become Us explores the increasingly intimate relationship between people and their personal communication technologies.In the first book of its kind, internationally recognized scholars from the United States and Europe explore this topic. Among the technologies analyzed include the Internet, personal digital assistants (PDAs), mobile phones, networked homes, smart fabrics and wearable computers, interactive location badges, and implanted monitoring devices. The authors discuss critical policy issues, such as the problems of information resource access and equity, and the recently discovered digital dropouts phenomena.The use of the word become in the book's title has three different meanings. The first suggests how people use these technologies to broaden their abilities to communicate and to represent themselves to others. Thus the technologies become extensions and representatives of the communicators. A second sense of become applies to analysis of the way these technologies become physically integrated with the user's clothing and even their bodies. Finally, contributors examine fashion aspects and uses of these technologies, that is, how they are used in ways becoming to the wearer. The conclusions of many chapters are supported by data, including ethnographic observations, attitude surveys and case studies from the United States, Britain, France, Italy, Finland, and Norway. This approach is especially valuable

Thinking Machines

Thinking Machines PDF Author: Luke Dormehl
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1524704415
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
A fascinating look at Artificial Intelligence, from its humble Cold War beginnings to the dazzling future that is just around the corner. When most of us think about Artificial Intelligence, our minds go straight to cyborgs, robots, and sci-fi thrillers where machines take over the world. But the truth is that Artificial Intelligence is already among us. It exists in our smartphones, fitness trackers, and refrigerators that tell us when the milk will expire. In some ways, the future people dreamed of at the World's Fair in the 1960s is already here. We're teaching our machines how to think like humans, and they're learning at an incredible rate. In Thinking Machines, technology journalist Luke Dormehl takes you through the history of AI and how it makes up the foundations of the machines that think for us today. Furthermore, Dormehl speculates on the incredible--and possibly terrifying--future that's much closer than many would imagine. This remarkable book will invite you to marvel at what now seems commonplace and to dream about a future in which the scope of humanity may need to broaden itself to include intelligent machines.

Flesh and Machines

Flesh and Machines PDF Author: Rodney Brooks
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 037572527X
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
Are we really on the brink of having robots to mop our floors, do our dishes, mow our lawns, and clean our windows? And are researchers that close to creating robots that can think, feel, repair themselves, and even reproduce? Rodney A. Brooks, director of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory believes we are. In this lucid and accessible book, Brooks vividly depicts the history of robots and explores the ever-changing relationships between humans and their technological brethren, speculating on the growing role that robots will play in our existence. Knowing the moral battle likely to ensue, he posits a clear philosophical argument as to why we should not fear that change. What results is a fascinating book that offers a deeper understanding of who we are and how we can control what we will become.

Robot

Robot PDF Author: Hans P. Moravec
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780195136302
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
In this compelling book, Hans Moravec predicts that machines will attain human levels of intelligence by the year 2040, and that by 2050, they will surpass us. But even though Moravec predicts the end of the domination by human beings, his is not a bleak vision. Far from railing against a future in which machines rule the world, Moravec embraces it, taking the startling view that intelligent robots will actually be our evolutionary heirs. "Intelligent machines, which will grow from us, learn our skills, and share our goals and values, can be viewed as children of our minds." And since they are our children, we will want them to outdistance us. In fact, in a bid for immortality, many of our descendants will choose to transform into "ex humans," as they upload themselves into advanced computers. This provocative new book, the highly anticipated follow-up to his bestselling volume Mind Children, charts the trajectory of robotics in breathtaking detail. A must read for artificial intelligence, technology, and computer enthusiasts, Moravec's freewheeling but informed speculations present a future far different than we ever dared imagine.

What Machines Can't Do

What Machines Can't Do PDF Author: Robert J. Thomas
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520915077
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
Virtually every manufacturing company has plans for an automated "factory of the future." But Robert J. Thomas argues that smart machines may not hold the key to an industrial renaissance. In this provocative and enlightening book, he takes us inside four successful manufacturing enterprises to reveal the social and political dynamics that are an integral part of new production technology. His interviews with nearly 300 individuals, from top corporate executives to engineers to workers and union representatives, give his study particular credibility and offer surprising insights into the organizational power struggles that determine the form and performance of new technologies. Thomas urges managers not to put blind hopes into smarter machines but to find smarter ways to organize people. As U.S. companies battle for survival in an era of growing global competition, What Machines Can't Do is an invaluable treatise on the ways we organize work. While its call for change is likely to be controversial, it will also attract anyone who wishes to understand the full impact of new technology on jobs, organizations, and the future of the industrial enterprise.

Machines Who Think

Machines Who Think PDF Author: Pamela McCorduck
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1040083102
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
This book is a history of artificial intelligence, that audacious effort to duplicate in an artifact what we consider to be our most important property—our intelligence. It is an invitation for anybody with an interest in the future of the human race to participate in the inquiry.

Machines Like Me

Machines Like Me PDF Author: Ian McEwan
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0385545126
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 291

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Book Description
From the Booker Prize winner and bestselling author of Atonement—”a sharply intelligent novel of ideas” (The New York Times) that asks whether a machine can understand the human heart, or whether we are the ones who lack understanding. Set in an uncanny alternative 1982 London—where Britain has lost the Falklands War, Margaret Thatcher battles Tony Benn for power, and Alan Turing achieves a breakthrough in artificial intelligence—Machines Like Me powerfully portrays two lovers who will be tested beyond their understanding. Charlie, drifting through life and dodging full-time employment, is in love with Miranda, a bright student who lives with a terrible secret. When Charlie comes into money, he buys Adam, one of the first generation of synthetic humans. With Miranda's assistance, he codesigns Adam's personality. The near-perfect human that emerges is beautiful, strong, and smart—and a love triangle soon forms. Ian McEwan's subversive, gripping novel poses fundamental questions: What makes us human—our outward deeds or our inner lives? Could a machine understand the human heart? This provocative and thrilling tale warns against the power to invent things beyond our control. Don’t miss Ian McEwan’s new novel, Lessons, coming in September!

Machines We Trust

Machines We Trust PDF Author: Marcello Pelillo
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262362163
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 175

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Book Description
Experts from disciplines that range from computer science to philosophy consider the challenges of building AI systems that humans can trust. Artificial intelligence-based algorithms now marshal an astonishing range of our daily activities, from driving a car ("turn left in 400 yards") to making a purchase ("products recommended for you"). How can we design AI technologies that humans can trust, especially in such areas of application as law enforcement and the recruitment and hiring process? In this volume, experts from a range of disciplines discuss the ethical and social implications of the proliferation of AI systems, considering bias, transparency, and other issues. The contributors, offering perspectives from computer science, engineering, law, and philosophy, first lay out the terms of the discussion, considering the "ethical debts" of AI systems, the evolution of the AI field, and the problems of trust and trustworthiness in the context of AI. They go on to discuss specific ethical issues and present case studies of such applications as medicine and robotics, inviting us to shift the focus from the perspective of a "human-centered AI" to that of an "AI-decentered humanity." Finally, they consider the future of AI, arguing that, as we move toward a hybrid society of cohabiting humans and machines, AI technologies can become humanity's allies.

Human Compatible

Human Compatible PDF Author: Stuart Jonathan Russell
Publisher: Penguin Books
ISBN: 0525558616
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
A leading artificial intelligence researcher lays out a new approach to AI that will enable people to coexist successfully with increasingly intelligent machines.

The First Book of Machines

The First Book of Machines PDF Author: Walter Buehr
Publisher: Colchis Books
ISBN:
Category : Young Adult Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 57

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Book Description
This book is about the story of modern machines, and how they do the world’s work. We shall see how raw materials, such as metals, wool and cotton fibers, and wood, are turned into automobiles, ships, typewriters, fabrics, and other useful products. Our machine age has made this possible, for only by machines can these many products be made cheaply and quickly. We shall also see how machines are able to do such varied jobs as threshing grain, machining engine blocks, or multiplying long rows of numbers. And later on, we shall learn how automation, the newest marvel of the machine age, teaches machines almost to “think” for themselves.