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Author: Jonathan Strahan
Publisher:
Published: 2010
Total Pages: 476
ISBN-13: 9781616647599
DOWNLOAD EBOOKOriginal novellas by six science fiction authors, each involving the concept of a mechanism or device so large and complex that it is difficult for humans to grasp all its implications and functions.
Author: Tamara S. Ketabgian
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Published: 2011-03-22
Total Pages: 254
ISBN-13: 0472051407
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDIVExpanded views of the connection between humans and machines in the Victorian era/div
Author: Andrew Smith
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Published: 2019-09-24
Total Pages: 464
ISBN-13: 1534422218
DOWNLOAD EBOOK“This provocative jaunt…dissects society, technology, othering, and what makes humanity human.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “An unpredictable, gross, and prescient rumination on modernity, media consumption, and machine-aided communication.” —Booklist (starred review) Told with Andrew Smith’s signature dark humor, Rabbit & Robot tells the story of Cager Messer, a boy who’s stranded on the Tennessee—his father’s lunar-cruise utopia—with insane robots. To help him shake his Woz addiction, Billy and Rowan transport Cager Messer up to the Tennessee, a giant lunar-cruise ship orbiting the moon. Meanwhile, Earth, in the midst of thirty simultaneous wars, burns to ash beneath them. And as the robots on board become increasingly insane and cannibalistic, and the Earth becomes a toxic wasteland, the boys have to wonder if they’ll be stranded alone in space forever. In Rabbit & Robot, Andrew Smith, Printz Honor author of Grasshopper Jungle, makes you laugh, cry, and consider what it really means to be human.
Author: Robert M. Geraci
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2012-11-29
Total Pages: 246
ISBN-13: 0199964009
DOWNLOAD EBOOKApocalyptic AI, the hope that we might one day upload our minds into machines and live forever in cyberspace, is a surprisingly wide-spread and influential idea. Robert Geraci points out that the rhetoric of 'Apocalyptic AI' is strikingly similar to that of the apocalyptic traditions of Judaism and Christianity.
Author: Greg Egan
Publisher: Greg Egan
Published: 2009-07-14
Total Pages: 391
ISBN-13: 192224015X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKOceanic is a collection of twelve stories, including the Hugo-award-winning “Oceanic”: “Lost Continent” “Dark Integers” “Crystal Nights” “Steve Fever” “Induction” “Singleton” “Oracle” “Border Guards” “Riding the Crocodile” “Glory” “Hot Rock” “Oceanic”
Author: Daniel Dinello
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Published: 2013-08-26
Total Pages: 342
ISBN-13: 0292758464
DOWNLOAD EBOOKTechno-heaven or techno-hell? If you believe many scientists working in the emerging fields of twenty-first-century technology, the future is blissfully bright. Initially, human bodies will be perfected through genetic manipulation and the fusion of human and machine; later, human beings will completely shed the shackles of pain, disease, and even death, as human minds are downloaded into death-free robots whereby they can live forever in a heavenly "posthuman" existence. In this techno-utopian future, humanity will be saved by the godlike power of technology. If you believe the authors of science fiction, however, posthuman evolution marks the beginning of the end of human freedom, values, and identity. Our dark future will be dominated by mad scientists, rampaging robots, killer clones, and uncontrollable viruses. In this timely new book, Daniel Dinello examines "the dramatic conflict between the techno-utopia promised by real-world scientists and the techno-dystopia predicted by science fiction." Organized into chapters devoted to robotics, bionics, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, biotechnology, nanotechnology, and other significant scientific advancements, this book summarizes the current state of each technology, while presenting corresponding reactions in science fiction. Dinello draws on a rich range of material, including films, television, books, and computer games, and argues that science fiction functions as a valuable corrective to technological domination, countering techno-hype and reflecting the "weaponized, religiously rationalized, profit-fueled" motives of such science. By imaging a disastrous future of posthuman techno-totalitarianism, science fiction encourages us to construct ways to contain new technology, and asks its audience perhaps the most important question of the twenty-first century: is technology out of control?
Author: Hamid Rafizadeh
Publisher: Archway Publishing
Published: 2018-06-19
Total Pages: 232
ISBN-13: 1480864072
DOWNLOAD EBOOKJohn Reagan is a retired policeman who is stuck in a purgatory of his own making until the events of September 11, 2001 prompt him to view every foreigner as a potential enemy. One day when he realizes his neighbor is hosting suspicious meetings in his basement, Reagan grabs his binoculars and a microphone, and does everything he can to find out what is going on and if they are terrorists. Inside the walls of the dark and musty basement, a man has recruited a group of seekers that include an Indian, an Egyptian, a Jew, and a Greek professor willing to listen to his radical ideas on prehistory. Through years of research, he has concluded that all of humankinds prehistory originated when Earth passed through a giant comets swarm of fragments. As Reagan stealthily continues his self-imposed investigation, the small band of seekers attempts to determine how to accept this seemingly unbelievable truth from millennia past. The only alternative is to remain ignorant of Earths two versionsa mistake with potentially distastrous consequences. In this gripping science fiction thriller, a retired cop and a revolutionary group delve into ancient history as the startling discovery of earths two versions is revealed.
Author: James A. Anderson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2017-03-03
Total Pages: 401
ISBN-13: 0199357803
DOWNLOAD EBOOKCurrent computer technology doubles in in power roughly every two years, an increase called "Moore's Law." This constant increase is predicted to come to an end soon. Digital technology will change. Although digital computers dominate today's world, there are alternative ways to "compute" which might be better and more efficient than digital computation. After Digital looks at where the field of computation began and where it might be headed, and offers predictions about a collaborative future relationship between human cognition and mechanical computation. James A. Anderson, a pioneer of biologically inspired neural nets, presents two different kinds of computation-digital and analog--and gives examples of their history, function, and limitations. A third, the brain, falls somewhere in between these two forms, and is suggested as a computer architecture that is more capable of performing some specific important cognitive tasks-perception, reasoning, and intuition, for example- than a digital computer, even though the digital computer is constructed from far faster and more reliable basic elements. Anderson discusses the essentials of brain hardware, in particular, the cerebral cortex, and how cortical structure can influence the form taken by the computational operations underlying cognition. Topics include association, understanding complex systems through analogy, formation of abstractions, the biology of number and its use in arithmetic and mathematics, and computing across scales of organization. These applications, of great human interest, also form the goals of genuine artificial intelligence. After Digital will appeal to a broad cognitive science community, including computer scientists, philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists, as well as the curious science layreader, and will help to understand and shape future developments in computation.
Author: R. C. W. Ettinger
Publisher: Universal-Publishers
Published: 2009
Total Pages: 429
ISBN-13: 1599429799
DOWNLOAD EBOOK"... innovative and important thinking about the various relations between feminist theory, queer theory, and lesbian theory, as well as the possibility that liberation can be mutual rather than mutually exclusive." —Lambda Book Report When feminism meets queer theory, no introductions seem necessary. The two share common political interests—a concern for women’s and gay and lesbian rights—and many of the same academic and intellectual roots. And yet, they can also seem like strangers, needing mediation, translation, clarification. This volume focuses on the encounters of feminist and queer theories, on the ways in which basic terms such as "male" and "female," "man" and "woman," "black," "white," "sex," "gender," and "sexuality" change meaning as they move from one body of theory to another. Along with essays by Judith Butler, Evelynn Hammonds, Biddy Martin, Kim Michasiw, Carole-Anne Tyler, and Elizabeth Weed, there are interviews: Judith Butler engages Rosi Braidotti and Gayle Rubin in separate revealing discussions. And there are critical exchanges: Rosi Braidotti and Trevor Hope exchange comments on his reading of her work; and Teresa de Lauretis responds to Elizabeth Grosz’s review of her recent book.
