Human Intelligence

Once relegated to the fringes of society, transhumanism (the use of technology to enhance human intellectual and physical capability) is now poised to enter our cultural mainstream. It has found adherents in Silicon Valley billionaires Ray Kurzweil and Peter Diamandis. Google has entered the picture, establishing a bio-tech subsidiary aimed at solving the problem of aging. In To Be a Machine, journalist Mark O'Connell takes a headlong dive into this burgeoning movement.

Barack Obama campaigned on a promise of change from George W. Bush's "global war on terror". Yet from indefinite detention and drone strikes to surveillance and military tribunals, Obama ended up continuing - and in some cases expanding - many policies he inherited. What happened? In Power Wars, Charlie Savage looks inside the Obama administration's national security legal and policy team in a way that no one has before.

The never-before-told full story of the history-changing break-in at the FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, by a group of unlikely activists - quiet, ordinary, hardworking Americans - that made clear the shocking truth and confirmed what some had long suspected, that J. Edgar Hoover had created and was operating, in violation of the U.S. Constitution, his own shadow Bureau of Investigation.

It is natural for us to fear artificial intelligence. But does Siri really want to kill us? Perhaps we are falling into the trap of projecting human traits onto the machines we might build. In Evolutionary Intelligence, Neuman offers a surprisingly positive vision in which computational intelligence compensates for the well-recognized limits of human judgment, improves decision making, and actually increases our agency. Neuman takes the listener on an exciting, fast-paced ride, all the while making a convincing case about a revolution in computationally augmented human intelligence.

In this visionary book, Leslie Valiant argues that understanding the nature of our own educability is crucial to safeguarding our future. After breaking down how we process information to learn and apply knowledge, and drawing comparisons with other animals and AI systems, he explains why education should be humankind's central preoccupation. Will the unique capability that has been so foundational to our achievements and civilization continue to drive our progress, or will we fall victim to our vulnerabilities?

A Wharton professor and tech entrepreneur examines how algorithms and artificial intelligence are starting to run every aspect of our lives and how we can shape the way they impact us.

AI is becoming ubiquitous. Whatever its arrival portends for our future, whether riches or ruin, it cannot be avoided. The Artifice of Intelligence explores two questions at the heart of a theological response to AI. Is it possible for human beings to have authentic relationships with an AI? How does the increasing presence of AI change the way humans relate to one another? In pursuing answers to these questions, Herzfeld explores what it means to be created in the image of God and to create AI in our own image.

In Only Humans Need Apply, Thomas Hayes Davenport and Julia Kirby reframe the conversation about automation, arguing that the future of increased productivity and business success isn't either human or machine. It's both. The key is augmentation, utilizing technology to help humans work better, smarter, and faster. Instead of viewing these machines as competitive interlopers, we can see them as partners and collaborators in creative problem solving as we move into the next era.

A squirrel in the garden. A rat in the wall. A pigeon on the street. Humans have spent so much of our history drawing a hard line between human spaces and wild places. When animals pop up where we don’t expect or want them, we respond with fear, rage, or simple annoyance. It’s no longer an animal. It’s a pest. At the intersection of science, history, and narrative journalism, Pests is not a simple call to look closer at our urban ecosystem. It’s not a natural history of the animals we hate. Instead, this book is about us.

Many people today are so dazzled by the long-term potential for artificial intelligence that they overlook the much clearer and more immediate potential for a new form of "collective intelligence": the intelligence of groups of people and computers working together. In Superminds, Thomas Malone explains what we need to do to take advantage of this potential. Groundbreaking and utterly fascinating, Superminds will change the way you work - both with others and with computers - for the better.

The prevalence of low sexual desire ranges from 26.7 percent among premenopausal women to 52.4 percent among naturally menopausal women. That is an enormous segment of women who are frustrated about their lack of desire and wonder what's wrong. But in Woman on Fire, Amy Jo Goddard shows us that the more whole we are as sexual beings, the more fulfilled we are as human beings.

Learn to understand and interpret the true intentions of other people. Discover the secrets to manipulation, how to recognize it and counteract in advance. Plus, imagine if you could - ethically - use the same techniques to improve your own social skills and gain leadership! Dark psychology reveals persuasion, manipulation, and coercion methods through which the predatory behavioral impulses of certain subjects affect and influence other people’s choices. Emotional intelligence is vital in order to assess and improve relationships and to achieve our personal goals.

If you listen to the news, robots are coming for your job. Full-time employment will soon be a thing of the past as organizations opt more to hire employees on a contract basis. With technological advances across email, video, project management, and instant messaging platforms, being tied to a desk working full time for one company is becoming obsolete. So, where does that leave you? The Human Cloud may be the most important book you hear to prepare for how work is done in the future.

Neuroscientists have painstakingly built up an understanding of the structure of the brain. Could this help physicists understand the levels of self-organization they observe in other systems? These same physicists, meanwhile, are trying to explain how particles organize themselves into the objects around us. Could their discoveries help explain how neurons produce our conscious experience? Exploring these questions and more, George Musser tackles the extraordinary interconnections between quantum mechanics, cosmology, human consciousness, and artificial intelligence.

Containing a fascinating exploration of the depths of the human mind, this insightful book takes listeners on a deep dive to discover the hidden parts of the psyche. Covering the subtle world of body language and non-verbal communication, along with the lesser-known secrets of human behavior, you’ll discover how you can draw on a rich collection of insights to protect yourself from manipulators and abusers.

Have you ever wondered how to get into another person's mind? Is it possible to control the minds of others like in fantasy movies and comics? Would you like to be able to persuade the minds of others? It is possible that someone has asked this question at some point in their life and has given up on it. The truth is that it does not matter how impossible this is but if it is possible to get into the minds of other people. At any time, people allow us to see the actions they perform, and it is here that we can detect their behavior patterns and thus enter their minds.

Technology is our new life partner. No longer confined to the sidelines, new interactive technologies like AI therapists, avatar friends, and robot assistants are ready to transform technology's role from basic tools of convenience to intimate elements of our social and emotional lives.

In Trustworthy AI, award-winning executive Beena Ammanath offers a practical approach for enterprise leaders to manage business risk in a world where AI is everywhere by understanding the qualities of trustworthy AI and the essential considerations for its ethical use within the organization and in the marketplace. The author draws from her extensive experience across different industries and sectors in data, analytics and AI, the latest research and case studies, and the pressing questions and concerns business leaders have about the ethics of AI.

Artificial intelligence is, as the name suggests, artificial and fundamentally different to human intelligence. Yet often the goal of AI is to fake human intelligence. This deceit has been there from the very beginning. We’ve been trying to fake it since Alan Turing answered the question ‘Can machines think?’ by proposing that machines pretend to be humans. Now we are starting to build AI that truly deceives us. Powerful AIs such as ChatGPT can convince us they are intelligent and blur the distinction between what is real and what is simulated.

For thousands of years, customers have been individual humans, families or organizations. But soon, generative AI enabled software and hardware machines will start to act as customers. First they will shop for us, later they will act for themselves. You can’t take them to dinner, and they won’t fall for your slogans, but they might help grow your market – if you know how. Companies are already being called on the phone by software that sounds like a person. Cars will buy their own fuel and tires. That smart speaker in every home can become the housekeeper and shopper for the family it serves.