Showing titles in Technology & Society

Bill McKibben, examines the dangers inherent in an array of technologies that threaten not just our survival, but our identity. Imagine a future where lab workers can reprogram human embryos to make our children "smarter" or "more sociable" or "happier." Enough examines such possibilities, and explains how we can avoid their worst consequences while still enjoying the fruits of our new scientific understandings.

Jian Wang was the founder and architect of Alibaba's cloud and has been the driving force behind its technology innovations. He was also the founder of the City Brain initiative to develop a new digital infrastructure for sustainable cities.

There is a huge effort underway in industry and universities to develop the next generation of more intelligent, autonomous, mobile robots. Accompanying these arrivals has been a steady stream of inflammatory articles in the media raising concerns over the impending specter of super-intelligent robots, along with stories about how most jobs will soon be lost to robots.

Not so long ago, we embraced social media as a life-changing opportunity to connect with friends and family all across the globe. Today, the pendulum of public opinion is swinging in the opposite direction as Facebook, Twitter, Google, YouTube, and similar sites are being accused of corrupting our democracy, spreading disinformation, and fanning the flames of hatred. Here, with insightful analysis and in-depth research, Robby Soave explores some of the biggest issues animating both the right and the left: bias, censorship, disinformation, privacy, screen addiction, crime, and more.

The power of hashtag activism became clear in 2011, when #IranElection served as an organizing tool for Iranians protesting a disputed election and offered a global audience a front-row seat to a nascent revolution. Since then, activists have used a variety of hashtags to advocate, mobilize, and communicate. In this book, Sarah Jackson, Moya Bailey, and Brooke Foucault Welles explore how and why Twitter has become an important platform for historically disenfranchised populations, including Black Americans, women, and transgender people.

Digital technology is wonderful, but it's making us miserable, say former tech executives Vivek Wadhwa and Alex Salkever. There's a reason Apple CEO Tim Cook told the Guardian he won't let his nephew on social networks. We've become a nation of tech addicts - although it's not entirely our fault, and it is possible to enjoy the benefits of technology while taking our happiness back from the bots. Wadhwa and Salkever describe the applied neuroscience techniques developers are using to make their products so insidiously habit-forming.

Never before has so much been known about so many. CCTV cameras, TSA scanners, NSA databases, big data marketers, predator drones, "stop and frisk" tactics, Facebook algorithms, hidden spyware, and even old-fashioned nosy neighbors - surveillance has become so ubiquitous that we take its presence for granted. While many types of surveillance are pitched as ways to make us safer, almost no one has examined the unintended consequences of living under constant scrutiny and how it changes the way we think and feel about the world.

This audiobook asks us to reconsider "whose global village" we are shaping with the digital technology revolution today. Sharing stories of collaboration with Native Americans in California and New Mexico, revolutionaries in Egypt, communities in rural India, and others across the world, Ramesh Srinivasan urges us to reimagine what the Internet, mobile phones, or social media platforms may look like when considered from the perspective of diverse cultures.

2016 gets the emoji it deserves, a fond farewell to Vine and controversy over car insurance based on your Facebook posts.

Künstliche Intelligenz und Algorithmen erleichtern in Form von Navis, Rechtschreibprogrammen, Suchergänzungen oder Kaufempfehlungen schon lange unseren Alltag. Aber sie hinterlassen oft auch ein mulmiges Gefühl, weil wir nicht so recht verstehen, was da passiert. Katharina Zweig, IT-Expertin für Sozioinformatik und vielfach ausgezeichnete Informatikprofessorin, erklärt mit Witz und anhand einfacher Beispiele und Illustrationen, was Algorithmen eigentlich genau sind, wie sie funktionieren, welche völlig harmlos sind und welche uns tatsächlich Sorgen bereiten sollten.

Big Tech Tyrants boast riches beyond emperors of old but act like juveniles who don't want to grow up. They are modern-day robber barons. Big Tech Tyrants don't know the meaning of privacy, when it comes to you. They try to make you believe they will give their products away for free as a service to society, when really, they are vacuuming your personal data. They use this data to discover your deepest secrets. Big Tech Tyrants is an eye-opening, must-listen book for anyone living in the 21st century.

Silicon Valley is imperializing the planet. With nearly bottomless supplies of cash and ambition, a small group of companies have been gradually seizing symbolic and practical civic leadership in America and worldwide. But Silicon Valley does not answer to the electorate; nor have they been voted into office. And the perils of their influence are only now making themselves known.

Silicon Valley has sold us the illusion that artificial intelligence is a frictionless technology that will bring wealth and prosperity to humanity. But hidden beneath this smooth surface lies the grim reality of a precarious global workforce of millions laboring under often appalling conditions to make A.I. possible. This book presents an urgent, riveting investigation of the intricate network that maintains this exploitative system, revealing the untold truth of A.I.

The US Bureau of Justice Statistics estimates that law-enforcement agencies have access to more than 100 million names stored in criminal history databases. In some cities, 80 percent of the black male population is registered in these databases. Digitize and Punish explores the long history of digital computing and criminal justice, revealing how big tech, computer scientists, university researchers, and state actors have digitized carceral governance over the past 40 years - with devastating impact on poor communities of color.

In Digital Vertigo, Andrew Keen illuminates today's social media revolution as the most wrenching cultural transformation since the Industrial Revolution. Fusing a fast-paced historical narrative with front-line stories from today's online networking revolution, and critiques of "social" companies like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, Keen argues that this social media transformation is weakening, disorienting, and dividing us rather than establishing the dawn of a new egalitarian and communal age.

Technology is evolving faster than we are. As our BlackBerry devices, tablets, and digital capabilities become more and more complex we understand less and less about how they work. we no longer read the instruction manual before powering on, and we demand intuitive interfaces that get us up and running right away. But how many of us actually stop to think about potential threats to our privacy?Our passports broadcast our personal information and could allow terrorists to target us by nationality.

Ever woken from a night of revelry to find your drunken antics the subject of a tagfest? Ever accidentally wall-posted yourself into a relationship row or been hunted by a school-days stalker? If your real social life is dying a death at the hands of your virtual one, fear not, Facebookers - help is just a little book away.This cheeky unofficial guide will show you how to navigate the perilous pitfalls of life online while having as much fun as possible.

In Empowered, Forrester’s Josh Bernoff - coauthor of the pioneering book Groundswell - and Ted Schadler explain how to transform your company by unleashing the force of HEROes: highly empowered and resourceful operatives. Your company needs them because, in the age of twitter, iPhones, Facebook, YouTube, your customers now step up to the counter armed with more data and access than ever before - often overmatching your team.

Bill McKibben’s groundbreaking book The End of Nature - issued in dozens of languages and long regarded as a classic - was the first book to alert us to global warming. But the danger is broader than that: Even as climate change shrinks the space where our civilization can exist, new technologies like artificial intelligence and robotics threaten to bleach away the variety of human experience. Falter tells the story of these converging trends and of the ideological fervor that keeps us from bringing them under control.

By shedding new light on grooming practices, this book provides a key resource for discourse analysis, forensic linguistics, communication, and media studies, as well as for practitioners aiming to counter online grooming through policy changes, detection software, and prevention-focused training to promote digital civility and safety.