The A.I. Age

I Sat up, strangely perplexed. For a moment, perhaps, I could not clearly understand how I came there. My terror had fallen from me like a garment. My hat had gone, and my collar had burst away from its fastener. A few minutes before, there had only been three real things before me-the immensity of the night and space and nature, my own feebleness and anguish, and the near approach of death.

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Augmented Mind

Alex Bates’s Augmented Mind is an encouraging and realistic look at the potential future of AI. The premise of this short, sound, and fascinating book is that computers can out-perform humans at certain tasks, such as sifting data and making rapid calculations, but lack the awareness needed to develop the complex combination of knowledge, experience, creativity, and ambition that humans bring to the table. Creating systems that augment human intelligence with artificial intelligence, ...

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The Neurogeneration

Tan Le’s The NeuroGeneration cracks open the world of brain enhancement to show that the future may be closer than we think. Le, on the cutting edge of research and technology into one of the biggest mysteries—the human brain—says that we are on the cusp of deeper understanding. This book issues an invitation for everyone—not just the scientific elite—into his exciting realm, bringing science fiction closer to reality. It has an almost otherworldly feel, though its perspective is ...

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The Case for Pandora

James Essig and Steve McCarter’s The Case For Pandora is a technical manual with instructions for building a spaceship capable of extraterrestrial travel. Designs for generation, colony, and century ships, collectively referred to as space arks, are offered as a solution to an extinction-level event (ELE) such as an asteroid or climate change. The text is devoted to a single solution to human extinction: leaving Earth behind. It includes extensive information about building a colony ...

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