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Virtually Human
- The Promise - and the Peril - of Digital Immortality
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings, Laural Merlington
- Length: 12 hrs and 39 mins
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Artificial intelligence is smarter than humans. It can process information at lightning speed and remain focused on specific tasks without distraction. AI can see into the future, predicting outcomes and even use sensors to see around physical and virtual corners. So why does Intelligence frequently get it so wrong? The answer is us. Humans design the algorithms that define the way that AI works and the processed information reflects an imperfect world.
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Publisher's Summary
Virtually Human explores what the not-too-distant future will look like when cyberconsciousness - simulation of the human brain via software and computer technology - becomes part of our daily lives. Meet Bina48, the world's most sentient robot, commissioned by Martine Rothblatt and created by Hanson Robotics. Bina48 is a nascent Mindclone of Martine’s wife that can engage in conversation, answer questions, and even have spontaneous thoughts that are derived from multimedia data in a Mindfile created by the real Bina. If you’re active on Twitter or Facebook, share photos through Instagram, or blogging regularly, you’re already on your way to creating a Mindfile - a digital database of your thoughts, memories, feelings, and opinions that is essentially a back-up copy of your mind. Soon, this Mindfile can be made conscious with special software - Mindware - that mimics the way human brains organize information, create emotions and achieve self-awareness. This may sound like science-fiction, but the nascent technology already exists. Thousands of software engineers across the globe are working to create cyberconsciousness based on human consciousness and the Obama administration recently announced plans to invest in a decade-long Brain Activity Map project. Virtually Human is the only audiobook to examine the ethical issues relating to cyberconsciousness and Rothblatt, with a Ph.D. in medical ethics, is uniquely qualified to lead the dialogue.
More from the same
What listeners say about Virtually Human
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars
-
Story4 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 03-27-15
A must read.
She covered the material. Now its up to readers to have discussions. Especially none believers .
-
Overall3 out of 5 stars
-
Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Aries Joseph Santos
- 11-19-14
Narrator Is Annoyingly Hard To Understand
What did you like about this audiobook?
The topic is something I'm very interested in.
How has the book increased your interest in the subject matter?
It would've if not for the narrator that sounded like a robot.
Does the author present information in a way that is interesting and insightful, and if so, how does he achieve this?
I guess; it's hard to tell because the narrator sounded like a robot.
What did you find wrong about the narrator's performance?
The narrator sounded like a robot! I don't know if that's her fault or the production, but either way, her robotic voice and inflection made it impossible to concentrate on the book!
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-
Possible Minds
- Twenty-Five Ways of Looking at AI
- By: John Brockman - editor
- Narrated by: Kathleen McInerney, Will Damron, Jason Culp, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 269
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 228
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 222
The fruit of the long history of John Brockman's profound engagement with the most important scientific minds who have been thinking about AI - from Alison Gopnik and David Deutsch to Frank Wilczek and Stephen Wolfram - Possible Minds is an ideal introduction to the landscape of crucial issues AI presents. The collision between opposing perspectives is salutary and exhilarating; some of these figures are deeply concerned with the threat of AI, including the existential one, while others have a very different view.
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1 out of 5 stars
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The worst book purchase I’ve made in a long while
- By Y. Zhao on 06-07-19
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Heart of the Machine
- Our Future in a World of Artificial Emotional Intelligence
- By: Richard Yonck
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 60
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 49
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 49
Imagine a robotic stuffed animal that can read and respond to a child's emotional state or a commercial that can change based on a customer's facial expression. 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.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Trivial, trite, superficial and why bother
- By Gary on 05-20-17
By: Richard Yonck
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The Internet of Us
- Knowing More and Understanding Less in the Age of Big Data
- By: Michael P. Lynch
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 6 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 39
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 36
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 36
We used to say "seeing is believing"; now googling is believing. With 24/7 access to nearly all of the world's information at our fingertips, we no longer trek to the library or the encyclopedia shelf in search of answers. We just open our browsers, type in a few keywords, and wait for the information to come to us. Indeed, the Internet has revolutionized the way we learn and know as well as how we interact with each other. Yet this explosion of technological innovation has also produced a curious paradox: Even as we know more, we seem to understand less.
By: Michael P. Lynch
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You Are Not a Gadget
- A Manifesto
- By: Jaron Lanier
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 332
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 213
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Story4 out of 5 stars 211
Jaron Lanier, a Silicon Valley visionary since the 1980s, was among the first to predict the revolutionary changes the World Wide Web would bring to commerce and culture. Now, in his first book, written more than two decades after the web was created, Lanier offers this provocative and cautionary look at the way it is transforming our lives for better and for worse.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Naive, luddistic, and ultimately pointless.
- By Naomi on 08-22-10
By: Jaron Lanier
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The Evolving Self
- A Psychology for the Third Millennium
- By: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 12 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 135
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 112
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 111
In this wise, humane inquiry, Csikszentmihalyi ( Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience) argues that genetically programmed behaviors that once helped humans adapt and multiply now threaten our survival. These traits include obsessions with food and sex, addiction to pleasure, excessive rationality, and a tendency to focus on the negative. A University of Chicago psychology professor, the author also believes we must free our minds of cultural illusions, such as ethnocentric superiority or identification with one's possessions.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Couldn't listen more than an hour
- By Fynn Jackson on 01-10-20
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Freedom Evolves
- By: Daniel C. Dennett
- Narrated by: Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 130
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 108
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 107
Can there be freedom and free will in a deterministic world? Renowned philosopher Daniel Dennett emphatically answers "yes!" Using an array of provocative formulations, Dennett sets out to show how we alone among the animals have evolved minds that give us free will and morality. Weaving a richly detailed narrative, Dennett explains in a series of strikingly original arguments - drawing upon evolutionary biology, cognitive neuroscience, economics, and philosophy - that far from being an enemy of traditional explorations of freedom, morality, and meaning, the evolutionary perspective can be an indispensable ally.
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5 out of 5 stars
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I knew I was going to like this book
- By Gary on 05-30-14
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Scary Smart
- The Future of Artificial Intelligence and How You Can Save Our World
- By: Mo Gawdat
- Narrated by: Mo Gawdat
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 113
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 94
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 94
Artificial intelligence is smarter than humans. It can process information at lightning speed and remain focused on specific tasks without distraction. AI can see into the future, predicting outcomes and even use sensors to see around physical and virtual corners. So why does Intelligence frequently get it so wrong? The answer is us. Humans design the algorithms that define the way that AI works and the processed information reflects an imperfect world.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Moving, 100% should read.
- By Amazon Customer on 02-25-23
By: Mo Gawdat
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The Righteous Mind
- Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
- By: Jonathan Haidt
- Narrated by: Jonathan Haidt
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 12,235
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 10,607
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 10,468
In The Righteous Mind, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt explores the origins of our divisions and points the way forward to mutual understanding. His starting point is moral intuition - the nearly instantaneous perceptions we all have about other people and the things they do. These intuitions feel like self-evident truths, making us righteously certain that those who see things differently are wrong. Haidt shows us how these intuitions differ across cultures, including the cultures of the political left and right.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Why Good People Are Divided - Good for whom?
- By K. Cunningham on 09-21-12
By: Jonathan Haidt
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The Science of Good and Evil
- Why People Cheat, Gossip, Care, Share, and Follow the Golden Rule
- By: Michael Shermer
- Length: 2 hrs and 21 mins
- Abridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 91
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 69
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Story4 out of 5 stars 66
In The Science of Good and Evil, psychologist and science historian Michael Shermer explores how humans evolved from social primates into moral primates, how and why morality motivates the human animal, and how the foundation of moral principles can be built upon empirical evidence. Along the way he explains the implications of scientific findings for fate and free will, the existence of pure good and pure evil, and the development of early moral sentiments among the first humans.
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3 out of 5 stars
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good albeit tunnel visioned around specific theme
- By Basem Aggad on 01-02-20
By: Michael Shermer
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The Technological Singularity
- By: Murray Shanahan
- Narrated by: Tim Andres Pabon
- Length: 6 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 57
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 45
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Story4 out of 5 stars 46
The idea that human history is approaching a "singularity" - that ordinary humans will someday be overtaken by artificially intelligent machines or cognitively enhanced biological intelligence, or both - has moved from the realm of science fiction to serious debate. Some singularity theorists predict that if the field of artificial intelligence (AI) continues to develop at its current dizzying rate, the singularity could come about in the middle of the present century.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Simplistic. Unworthy.
- By Blair on 07-21-17
By: Murray Shanahan
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Virus of the Mind
- The New Science of the Meme
- By: Richard Brodie
- Narrated by: Richard Brodie
- Length: 4 hrs and 36 mins
- Abridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 257
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 172
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 171
Virus of the Mind is the first popular work devoted to the science of memetics, a controversial new field that transcends psychology, biology, anthropology, and cognitive science. Memetics is the science of memes, the invisible but very real DNA of human society. Here, the author carefully builds on the work of scientists Richard Dawkins, Douglas Hofstadter, Daniel Dennett, and others who have become fascinated with memes and their potential impact on our lives.
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2 out of 5 stars
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The "Memes Explain Everything" Meme.
- By Nelson Alexander on 02-20-10
By: Richard Brodie
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The Fourth Age
- By: Byron Reese
- Narrated by: Danny Campbell
- Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 399
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 343
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 344
We are now on the doorstep of a fourth change brought about by two technologies: AI and robotics. The Fourth Age provides extraordinary background information on how we got to this point, and how - rather than what - we should think about the topics we’ll soon all be facing: machine consciousness, automation, employment, creative computers, radical life extension, artificial life, AI ethics, the future of warfare, superintelligence, and the implications of extreme prosperity.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Big History Story of AI
- By SurferDoug on 04-25-18
By: Byron Reese
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Breaking the Spell
- Religion as a Natural Phenomenon
- By: Daniel C. Dennett
- Narrated by: Dennis Holland
- Length: 12 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 734
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 641
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 628
For all the thousands of books that have been written about religion, few until this one have attempted to examine it scientifically: to ask why - and how - it has shaped so many lives so strongly. Is religion a product of blind evolutionary instinct or rational choice? Is it truly the best way to live a moral life? Ranging through biology, history, and psychology, Daniel C. Dennett charts religion’s evolution from “wild” folk belief to “domesticated” dogma.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great Reader Actually Enhances A Great Book!
- By Don Caliente on 07-14-14
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The Moral Landscape
- How Science Can Determine Human Values
- By: Sam Harris
- Narrated by: Sam Harris
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 4,378
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,570
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 3,512
In this explosive new book, Sam Harris tears down the wall between scientific facts and human values, arguing that most people are simply mistaken about the relationship between morality and the rest of human knowledge. Harris urges us to think about morality in terms of human and animal well-being, viewing the experiences of conscious creatures as peaks and valleys on a "moral landscape".
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5 out of 5 stars
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Read it
- By Paul on 11-23-10
By: Sam Harris
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The Mind of the Market
- Compassionate Apes, Competitive Humans and Other Tales from Evolutionary Economics
- By: Michael Shermer
- Narrated by: Michael Shermer
- Length: 5 hrs and 26 mins
- Abridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 97
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 56
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Story4 out of 5 stars 56
The Mind of the Market will change the way we think about the economics of everyday life. Drawing on research from neuroeconomics, Michael Shermer explores what brain scans reveal about bargaining, snap purchases, and how trust is established in business. Utilizing experiments in behavioral economics, Shermer shows why people hang on to losing stocks and failing companies, why business negotiations often disintegrate into emotional tit-for-tat disputes, and why money does not make us happy.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Good ideas overshadowed by obnoxious polemics
- By Philo on 09-15-13
By: Michael Shermer
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The Political Mind
- By: George Lakoff
- Narrated by: Kent Cassella
- Length: 8 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 156
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 102
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Story4 out of 5 stars 99
This passionate, erudite, and groundbreaking book will appeal to readers of Steven Pinker and Thomas Frank. It is a fascinating read for anyone interested in how the mind works, how society works, and how they work together.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Rant in sheeps clothing
- By Greg on 12-17-08
By: George Lakoff
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The Meme Machine
- By: Susan Blackmore, Richard Dawkins - foreword
- Narrated by: Esther Wane
- Length: 11 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 60
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 53
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 52
First coined by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene, a meme is any idea, behavior, or skill that can be transferred from one person to another by imitation. Susan Blackmore shows that once our distant ancestors acquired the crucial ability to imitate, a second kind of natural selection began, a survival of the fittest amongst competing ideas and behaviors. Ideas and behaviors that proved most adaptive-making tools, for example, or using language - survived and flourished, replicating themselves in as many minds as possible.
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4 out of 5 stars
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memes are gut bacteria, not godlike puppet masters
- By Hans Thieme on 02-14-22
By: Susan Blackmore, and others