Technology & Society

We are approaching a critical threshold in the history of our species. Everything is about to change. Soon you will live surrounded by AIs. They will organize your life, operate your business, and run core government services.

New York Times bestselling author and MSNBC and podcast host Chris Hayes offers a powerful wide-angle reckoning with how the assault from attention capitalism on our minds and our hearts has reordered our politics and the very fabric of our society

Computer scientists Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor reveal what you need to know about AI—and how to defend yourself against bogus AI claims and products.

At once funny, heartbreaking, and surreal, Second Life is a journey that spans a network of fertility apps, prenatal genetic tests, gender reveal videos, rare disease Facebook groups, “freebirth” influencers, and hospital reality shows.

Minimalism is the art of knowing how much is just enough. Digital minimalism applies this idea to our personal technology. It's the key to living a focused life in a noisy world. Author Cal Newport introduces a philosophy for technology use that has already improved countless lives....

Tech visionary and co-founder of Manas AI Reid Hoffman shares his unique insider’s perspective on an AI-powered future, making the case for its potential to unlock a world of possibilities.

The rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has dramatically empowered people in all walks of life, from artists to business executives to policymakers. But as the technology becomes more powerful and more ubiquitous, it is giving rise to urgent questions about the future of humanity.

The bestselling author of The God Equation takes an exhilarating tour of humanity's next great technological achievement—quantum computing—which may supercharge artificial intelligence, solve some of humanity's biggest problems, like global warming, world hunger, and incurable disease.

Science writer Adam Becker investigates how Silicon Valley’s heartless, baseless, and foolish obsessions—with escaping death, emergent AI tyrants, and limitless growth—pervert public discourse and distract us from real social problems.

Scary Smart is an insider look at the future not only of technology and AI, but of our species, together with an accessible blueprint for what we can do to safeguard ourselves, those we love and the planet itself....

In November 2022, a webpage was posted online with a simple text box. It was ChatGPT, and was unlike any app people had used before. Parmy Olson uses her experience covering technology to bring to light the exploitation of the greatest invention in human history, and how it will impact us all.

For over three decades, Ray Kurzweil has been one of the most respected and provocative advocates of the role of technology in our future. In his classic The Age of Spiritual Machines, he argued that computers would soon rival the full range of human intelligence at its best....

Interweaving stories about the science and the people behind it, Artificial Intelligence brims with clear-sighted, captivating, and approachable accounts of the most interesting and provocative modern work in AI, flavored with Mitchell’s humor and personal observations....

Three of the world’s most accomplished and deep thinkers come together to explore Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the way it is transforming human society - and what this technology means for us all....

In this audiobook, Allison Pugh makes a timely and urgent argument for preserving the work that connects us in the age of automation.

Revealing the unfolding story of Artificial Intelligence, Richard Susskind presents a short non-technical guide that challenges us to think differently about AI. Susskind brings AI out of computing laboratories, big tech companies, and start-ups—and into everyday life.

A former gamer and Harvard-trained psychiatrist offers a proven, tested plan to help parents define, set, and reinforce healthy boundaries around video games and help kids who have developed an addiction to gaming....

A reflective, original invitation to recover and cultivate the human experiences that have atrophied in our virtual world.

A veteran Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist shadows the top thinkers in the field of Artificial Intelligence, introducing the breakthroughs and developments that will change the way we live and work.

From the New York Times best-selling authors of Abundance and Bold comes a practical playbook for technological convergence in our modern era....

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism is neither a hand-wringing narrative of danger and decline nor a digital fairy tale. It offers a reasoned and evocative examination of the contests over the next chapter of capitalism that will decide the meaning of information civilization....

The authors of the best-selling Bold and The Rise of Superman explore altered states of consciousness and how they can ignite passion, fuel creativity, and accelerate problem solving....

When scholars write the history of the world twenty years from now, what will they say was the most crucial development in the first few years of the twenty-first century? The attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11 and the Iraq war....

Columbia Business School professor Sandra Matz reveals in fascinating detail how big data offers insights into the most intimate aspects of our psyches and how these insights empower an external influence over the choices we make.

Sandy Hook is Elizabeth Williamson’s landmark investigation of the aftermath of a school shooting, the work of Sandy Hook parents who fought to defend themselves, and the truth of their children’s fate against the frenzied distortions of online deniers and conspiracy theorists.

Tech billionaires have decided that they should determine our futures for us. According to Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Sam Altman, and more, the only good future for humanity is one powered by technology: trillions of humans living in space, functionally immortal, served by superintelligent AIs. In More Everything Forever, science writer Adam Becker investigates these wildly implausible and often profoundly immoral visions of tomorrow—and shows why, in reality, there is no good evidence that they will, or should, come to pass.

On the 40th anniversary of Neil Postman's prophetic book Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985), Scrolling Ourselves to Death gathers today's most incisive writers to think critically about the shaping power of contemporary technology. This book explores Postman's insights, connects them to the challenges facing Christians today, and turns difficult challenges into life-giving opportunities for the church. Stepping back from their screens, listeners will be equipped to live faithfully, and grow spiritually, in a "scrolling ourselves to death" world.

As an internet culture critic for The New York Times, Amanda Hess had built a reputation among readers as a sharp observer of the seductions and manipulations of online life. But when Hess discovered she was pregnant with her first child, she found herself unexpectedly rattled by a digital identity crisis of her own. In the summer of 2020, a routine ultrasound detected a mysterious abnormality in Hess’s baby. Without hesitation, she reached for her phone, looking for answers.

In How To Think About AI, Richard Susskind draws on his experience of working on AI since the early 1980s. For Susskind, balancing the benefits and threats of artificial intelligence is the defining challenge of our age. He explores the history of AI and possible scenarios for its future. His views on AI are not always conventional. He positions ChatGPT and generative AI as no more than the latest chapter in the ongoing story of AI and claims we are still at the foothills of developments.

Written by seasoned tech executive Sandy Carter, AI First, Human Always is your guidebook to the seven hottest trends in AI. This book will recalibrate your approach to the exponential curve of emerging AI solutions for business. It will help you transform today's unstoppable currents of change into tailwinds that propel your organization to great heights.

In Like, bestselling author and renowned strategist Martin Reeves and coauthor Bob Goodson—Silicon Valley veteran and participant in the invention of the like button—take listeners along on a fascinating quest to find out what's behind the world's friendliest icon. It's a story that starts out as simply as a thumbs-up cartoon but ends up presenting surprises and new mysteries at every turn, some of them as deep as anthropological history and others as speculative as the AI-charged future.

Green energy technologies such as windmills, solar panels, and electric vehicles may soon depend on material found at the seabed. How did a space once imagined to be empty and unfathomable come to be thought of as a treasure trove of resources? Lisa Yin Han traces how contemporary developments in underwater sensing and imaging materially and imaginatively transmogrify the ocean bottom into a resource frontier capable of sustaining a digitally connected global future.

Leave Your Phone at the Door embraces the OFFLINE philosophy, which is a celebration of the much-underrated virtues of randomness and serendipity. Whether sharing stories of unexpected encounters, alarming behavioral trends or the joys of quiet and contemplation, Howard Lewis encourages us to adopt an open mind and a generosity of spirit whenever we are confronted by the unfamiliar or surprising or different.

Das Umfeld in den sozialen Netzwerken wird immer ekliger: Hass, Ausgrenzung, Beleidigung und extreme Positionen dominieren X, Facebook, Instagram und Co. Große Unternehmen ziehen immer häufiger hohe Werbeetats von den Plattformen ab. Engagement Rates sinken seit Jahren, da Bots einen enormen Anteil der Interaktion ausmachen. Für viele Nutzer werden soziale Medien dadurch immer unattraktiver. Sie wechseln in neu entstehende digitale Communitys, die ein geschütztes Umfeld frei von Falschinformationen und plumper Meinungsmache bieten.

Restoring Our Sanity Online is the entertaining, informative, and frequently jaw-dropping social reset by Mark Weinstein, contemporary tech leader, privacy expert, and one of the visionary inventors of social networking. This book is for all of us. Casual and heavy users of social media, parents, teachers, students, techies, entrepreneurs, investors, and elected officials. Restoring Our Sanity Online is the catapult to an exciting, enriching, and authentic future. Listeners will embark on a captivating journey leading to an inspiring and actionable reinvention.