The lovely folks over at Shepherd have kindly asked me to select my top 5 books on a topic associated with one of my books. So naturally I chose MUNKi and our continuing struggles with technology, and the name of…
It is now arguably the dominant perspective to see human history as progressive. This has not always been the case. The Judaeo-Christian view envisions a fall from a primary state of divine favour and perfection; the Greek poet Herodotus saw…
Science fiction authors have been warning us for decades of the dangers technology poses. Recently, advances in artificial intelligence and robotics seem to suggest that they have been right all along. Computers are now driving cars and piloting automated weapons…
Sci-fi has long agreed that the one thing missing from Artificial Intelligence is emotion. From Star Trek’s Data to Arnie’s Terminator, the capacity to feel anger, sadness, joy, etc, has been taken as a milestone past which robots and computers…
Jaron Lanier is perhaps a rarity: a techno-enthusiast who is also sceptical about the path along which technology is taking us. As a pioneer in the field of virtual reality, and with tech credentials as long as your arm, Lanier…
What pet owner hasn’t at some point looked into the face of their little furry chum and wondered what it’s thinking? Wouldn’t it be great to be like Dr Doolittle, to imagine “chatting to a chimp” and being able to…
“Have you had a productive day?” someone recently asked me, and for some reason it suddenly struck me just how embedded into our lives the notion of productivity is. What am I? A dairy cow? As if a day that…