Talking to Robots: A Brief Guide to Our Human-Robot Futures - Couverture rigide

Duncan, David Ewing

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 147214290X ISBN 13 : 9781472142900

Editeur : Robinson, 2019

Synopsis

Award-winning journalist David Ewing Duncan sketches twenty-four visions of possible human-robot futures - short scenarios grounded in present-day technologies and ideas, but inspired by imagination. He explores how robots and AI systems may impact on individuals and societies over the next few years, centuries and beyond - for better or for worse.

A propos du livre

À propos de l?auteur

David Ewing Duncan is an award-winning science journalist. A contributor to Wired, Vanity Fair, the New York Times, National Public Radio, ABC News, The Atlantic, and National Geographic and the bestselling author of eleven books published in twenty-one languages, he was founding director of the Center for Life Science Policy at the University of California, Berkeley.

À propos de la quatrième de couverture

'A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.' Isaac Asimov, The First Law of Robotics

Praise for David Ewing Duncan's Experimental Man:
'In sweeping the reader up in his quest, Duncan shows what good reporting and storytelling can do. His narrative method - part mystery tale, part voyeuristic drama - humanizes complex information, educates and entertains.'
San Francisco Chronicle

Praise for David Ewing Duncan's The Calendar:
'As the new millennium approaches, this fine book will prove to all readers that the establishment of a consistent and useful calendar is no dull work of drones and bean counters, but one of humanity's greatest achievements and the embodiment of our culture, history and progress.'
Stephen Jay Gould

À propos de la deuxième de couverture

Award-winning journalist David Ewing Duncan sketches twenty-four visions of possible human-robot futures - short scenarios grounded in present-day technologies and ideas, but inspired by imagination. He explores how robots and AI systems may impact on individuals and societies over the next few years, centuries and beyond - for better or for worse.


What robot and AI systems are being built and imagined right now? What do they say about us, their creators? Will they usher in a fantastic new future, or destroy us? What do some of our greatest thinkers, from physicist Brian Greene and futurist Kevin Kelly to inventor Dean Kamen, geneticist George Church and filmmaker Tiffany Shlain, anticipate for our human-robot future? For even as robots and AI intrigue us and make us anxious about the future, our fascination with robots has always been about more than the potential of the technology - it also concerns what robots tell us about being human.

From present-day Facebook and Amazon bots to near-future 'intimacy' bots and 'the robot that swiped my job' bots, this is a wonderfully entertaining and insightful guide to possible future scenarios about robots, both real and imagined.

Featured bots include robot drivers; doc bots; politician bots; warrior bots; sex bots; synthetic
bio bots; dystopic bots that are hopefully just bad dreams; and ultimately, God Bot (as
described by physicist Brian Greene).

These scenarios are informed by discussions with well-known thinkers, engineers, scientists, artists, philosophers and others, who share with us their ideas, hopes and fears about robots. David spoke with, among others, Kevin Kelly, David Baldacci, Brian Greene, Dean Kamen, Craig Venter, Stephanie Mehta, David Eagleman, George Poste, George Church, General R. H. Latiff, Robert Seigel, Emily Morse, David Sinclair, Ken Goldberg, Sunny Bates, Adam Gazzaley, Tim O'Reilly, Tiffany Shlain, Eric Topol and Juan Enriquez.

The discussions serve as launch pads for unfurling possible bot futures that are informed by how people and societies have handled new technologies in the past. The book's primary focus is less on how robots work than on what our fixation with bots and AI says about us as humans: our hopes and anxieties; our myths, stories, beliefs and ideas about beings both real and artificial; and our attempts to attain perfection.

Praise for the author:
The Calendar sparkles. Gripping, expansive and scholarly, it will be indispensable reading for years to come. Duncan has achieved a rare feat in turning something ordinary into an extraordinary metaphor of life.
Observer

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Robinson
• Date d'édition: 2019
• ISBN 10: 147214290X
• ISBN 13: 9781472142900
• Reliure: Relié
• Langue: anglais
• Nombre de pages: 320
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible