Computer Science History

Humans are hard-wired for collaboration, and new technologies of communication act as a super-amplifier of our natural collaborative mindset. This volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series examines the emergence of a new kind of social collaboration enabled by networked technologies. This new collaborative society might be characterized as a series of services and startups that enable peer-to-peer exchanges and interactions though technology.

For decades, technology encouraged people to squander their time and intellect as passive consumers. Today, technology has finally caught up with human potential. In Cognitive Surplus, Internet guru Clay Shirky forecasts the thrilling changes we will all enjoy as new digital technology puts our untapped resources of talent and goodwill to use at last.

According to Winston Churchill, Alan Turing made the single biggest contribution to the Allied victory over Nazi Germany with his code-breaking machine. The world is also indebted to Turing's genius for the modern computer. It was clear that Turing had a remarkable mind from an early age. He taught himself to read in just three weeks. At his first school, the headmistress said, "I have had clever and hardworking boys, but Alan has genius."

Twitter, Facebook, e-publishing, blogs, distance-learning and other social media raise some of the most divisive cultural questions of our time. Some see the technological breakthroughs we live with as hopeful and democratic new steps in education, information gathering, and human progress. But others are deeply concerned by the eroding of civility online, declining reading habits, withering attention spans, and the treacherous effects of 24/7 peer pressure on our young.

Today, Artificial Intelligence seems mystical and magical to most people. While this wave of change will touch every aspect of our daily lives, most of us still do not understand AI’s capabilities, limitations, or history. In this book, Dr. Alok Aggarwal – one of the early innovators and developers in this field – sets out to demystify Artificial Intelligence by explaining the science and engineering in non-technical terms we can all understand.

This groundbreaking audiobook challenges listeners to contemplate the profound differences between divine omnipotence and the limitations of artificial intelligence. Narrated with clarity and depth, this thought-provoking journey takes you through twelve captivating chapters that contrast the infinite capabilities of God with the finite potential of AI.

Von der Sonnenuhr zum Fischer-Dübel: Die Welt der Technik in 100 Objekten. Von einem Cembalo aus dem Venedig des 16. Jahrhunderts über den Benz-Patent-Motorwagen Nr. 1 und die Aufnahme Röntgens von der Hand seiner Frau bis zu einer Recyclingtasche und dem mRNA-Impfstoff gegen COVID-19 von BioNTech – jedes dieser 100 Objekte erzählt seine Geschichte auf mehreren Ebenen.

Nikola Tesla was a bundle of contradictions - a consummate showman and a private recluse; a man of science addicted to self-promotion; a prolific inventor of technologies that made other people’s fortunes. Tesla made giant leaps in the technology of electrical supply, X-rays, radio remote control, and wireless electrical transmission. He embodied the aspirations and the contradictions of an age of innovation that seemed to have the future firmly in its grasp. Then as now, he attracted cranks and visionaries in equal number.

The electronic age compels us to confront the delicate balance between the convenience of constant connectivity and the protection of personal privacy, security, and democracy itself. Presented as a two-fold concern of digital and civic literacy, surveillance and privacy expert Heidi Boghosian argues that our fight to uphold democracy must extend to the online world. As “smart” citizens, our best chance of thriving in the digital era lies in taking care of our “smart” selves as diligently as we maintain our smart devices.

Are you searching for ways to enhance your personal growth but feel overwhelmed by the abundance of information out there? Do you find yourself wishing for tools that can streamline your daily tasks and make life simpler? "Artificial Intelligence in Everyday Life Simplified" understands your struggles and offers practical solutions to these common challenges. This book is designed to demystify AI and show you how to leverage its power to improve various aspects of your life.

Two of the biggest design problems in Artificial Intelligence are how to build robots that behave in line with human values and how to stop them ever going rogue. One under-explored solution to these alignment and control problems might be to examine how these are already addressed in the design of humans. Robot Souls looks at developments in AI and reviews the emergence of ideas of consciousness and the soul. It places our 'junk code' in this context and argues that it is time to foreground that code, and to use it to look again at how we are programming AI.

A particular form of AI is now embedded in our tech, our infrastructure, and our lives. How did it get there? Where and why should we be concerned? And what should we do now? The Shortcut: Why Intelligent Machines Do Not Think Like Us provides an accessible yet probing exposure of AI in its prevalent form today, proposing a new narrative to connect and make sense of events that have happened in the recent tumultuous past, and enabling us to think soberly about the road ahead.

Spanning four decades of dramatic advances in astronomy and planetary science, this book tells the story of eleven iconic exploratory missions and how they have fundamentally transformed our scientific and cultural perspectives on the universe and our place in it

Ninguna empresa científica reciente ha resultado tan seductora, aterradora y llena de extravagantes promesas y frustrantes reveses como la IA. La galardonada científica informática Melanie Mitchell revela su turbulenta historia, la reciente oleada de aparentes éxitos, las grandes esperanzas y temores que la rodean, y las cuestiones más urgentes hoy: ¿hasta qué punto son realmente inteligentes los programas de IA? ¿Qué pueden hacer realmente? ¿Hasta qué punto esperamos que se asemejen a los humanos y cuándo debemos preocuparnos de que nos superen?

In this perceptive and provocative look at everything from computer software that requires faster processors and more support staff to antibiotics that breed resistant strains of bacteria, Edward Tenner offers a virtual encyclopedia of what he calls "revenge effects" - the unintended consequences of the mechanical, chemical, biological, and medical forms of ingenuity that have been hallmarks of the progressive, improvement-obsessed modern age.

Eine Chinesin, die es wagt, ihren brasilianischen Freund nicht mehr länger nur in einer virussicheren, virtuellen Realität zu treffen. Ein junger Mann in Sri Lanka, der mittels autonomer Fahrzeuge Leben rettet. Ein Münchner Quantencomputerprofi, der die Welt mit KI-gesteuerten Waffen ins Chaos stürzen will... In KI 2041 haben sich der international bekannteste KI-Experte und ein führender Science-Fiction-Autor zusammengetan, um eine zwingende Frage zu beantworten: Wie wird künstliche Intelligenz unser Leben in zwanzig Jahren verändert haben?

The Real Case for Driverless Mobility: Putting Driverless Vehicles to Use for Those Who Really Need a Ride explores solutions for providing mobility for the unserved/underserved, including those who cannot drive themselves, afford transport alternatives, or who live in areas where neither public nor private transport is offered. The book synthesizes the career-long activities of the authors and the Princeton SmartDrivingCars Summits and assesses whether cars without drivers can deliver an affordable and more effective alternative to mass transit and taxis.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin started out as two Stanford college students with a wild idea: They were going to organize the world’s information. From that one deceptively simple goal, they created one of the most influential and innovative companies in the world. The word google has even entered our vocabulary as a verb. Now, find out the true history of Google - from its humble beginnings as a thesis project made out of “borrowed” hardware and discount toys through its revolution of the world’s relationship with technology to a glimpse of where they might take us next.

How do you reply to your colleague’s weird email? What would Emily Post say about your Tinder profile? And just how do you know if you’re mansplaining? In this irreverent journey through the murky world of digital etiquette, Wired’s Victoria Turk provides an indispensable guide to minding our manners in a brave new online world, and making peace with the platforms, apps, and devices we love to hate.

We have been underselling the future. In fact, the future will be neither dystopia nor utopia (which is an actively harmful dichotomy) - it will be what we do the work to make it. And the best way to the brightest future is to focus on what we can do, and make sure we are working to get there. Kate O’Neill, author of Tech Humanist and Pixels and Place, explores the ways we have already begun to solve human problems at scale, and makes the case for an approach that’s both hopeful and strategic as our best chance at a truly bright future.