Deus Ex Machina Sapiens

Watson's win on Jeopardy came as no surprise to those who had read Deus ex Machina sapiens. It was written largely during the 1990s, around the time that another IBM supercomputer--Deep Blue--was trouncing world chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov. The book has since been updated on a few points of detail but its primary message remains intact: the Machine is rapidly evolving as Man's rival if not replacement for the job of Steward of the Earth. Building upon the work of some of the world's greatest scientists, philosophers, and religious thinkers, and drawing particularly from developments in the computing and cognitive sciences--particularly, the field of artificial intelligence, or AI--the book reveals the evolutionary emergence of a machine that is not just intelligent but also self-conscious, emotional, and free-willed. In the 1980s and '90s you used to hear grandiose claims about AI. Machines would soon surpass humans in intelligence, it was claimed by some. The Japanese government spent a billion dollars on one project to make it happen. Well, it didn't happen, but that didn't stop the development of intelligence in machines. AI research simply went underground, and has ever since been quietly incorporated into the "ordinary" programs we use every day, without fanfare, without hype. There is still no machine that rivals Homo sapiens in overall intelligence, but today there are machines that far exceed human intellectual capacity in specific domains, from games to engineering to art, and the number of domains is growing exponentially big and exponentially fast. The disappearance of AI from front stage was good insofar as it allowed machines to develop in the right way; that is, through an evolutionary process, which is the only way for something of such complexity to develop. But it was bad insofar as we lost sight of the development of the intelligent machine. Deus brings Machina sapiens back to front stage, where it belongs. After describing the evolutionary development of intelligence in machines it goes on to describe the emotional, intellectual, and ethical attributes of what is no less than an emergent new life form. It asks the Big Question that can only be asked if you accept the very possibility of the new life form: Will it be serpent or savior? The question is answered in the book's title, which is intended to mean "God Emerging From the Intelligent Machine." The author confesses to having never studied Latin and to have concocted the title from two known Latin phrases: "Deus ex Machina" and "Homo sapiens." The concoction could be grammatically incorrect. The author would be pleased to be corrected.

International Bestseller From the author of the international bestseller Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind comes an extraordinary new book that explores the future of the human species. Yuval Noah Harari, author of the bestselling Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, envisions a not-too-distant world in which we face a new set of challenges. In Homo Deus, he examines our future with his trademark blend of science, history, philosophy and every discipline in between. Homo Deus explores the projects, dreams and nightmares that will shape the twenty-first century – from overcoming death to creating artificial life. It asks the fundamental questions: Where do we go from here? And how will we protect this fragile world from our own destructive powers? This is the next stage of evolution. This is Homo Deus. War is obsolete You are more likely to commit suicide than be killed in conflict Famine is disappearing You are at more risk of obesity than starvation Death is just a technical problem Equality is out – but immortality is in What does our future hold?

Self-learning machines called AIs are popping up all around us. They’re real, and really important. They’re affecting our lives—as workers, consumers, investors, citizens, patients and students. AIs bring huge promise, but also existential risk. The biggest risk isn’t killer robots—it’s the renegade leaders, despots, and unrestrained hackers everywhere we should worry about. Charles Jennings’ insightful new book, Artificial Intelligence: The Rise of the Lightspeed Learners presents sides of AI most people have never even considered before. That surprises are a main product of AIs. That AI cybersecurity is much more critical than traditional IT security. That, as Vladimir Putin put it, “the country that leads in AI will control the world.” Jennings blends insights into Silicon Valley, Washington D.C., and Beijing with insider AI stories, irreverent humor and strong opinions. He explores the global AI ecosystem from Cambridge to Beijing; and provides a stark assessment of AI activity in China—where he lived for two years working with senior government officials. He claims that the U.S. and China are in an AI horserace that will be the most important technology contest ever, with the outcome still very much in doubt. Consisting of stories, musings, interviews, and more, it provides a timely and accessible explanation of AI and its key issues to the general reading public.

Gaming the System takes philosophical traditions out of the ivory tower and into the virtual worlds of video games. In this book, author David J. Gunkel explores how philosophical traditions—put forth by noted thinkers such as Plato, Descartes, Kant, Heidegger, and Žižek—can help us explore and conceptualize recent developments in video games, game studies, and virtual worlds. Furthermore, Gunkel interprets computer games as doing philosophy, arguing that the game world is a medium that provides opportunities to model and explore fundamental questions about the nature of reality, personal identity, social organization, and moral conduct. By using games to investigate and innovate in the area of philosophical thinking, Gunkel shows how areas such as game governance and manufacturers' terms of service agreements actually grapple with the social contract and produce new postmodern forms of social organization that challenge existing modernist notions of politics and the nation state. In this critically engaging study, Gunkel considers virtual worlds and video games as more than just "fun and games," presenting them as sites for new and original thinking about some of the deepest questions concerning the human experience.

Discover humanity’s past and its future in this in this special e-book collection featuring Sapiens—a reading pick of President Barack Obama, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg—and its acclaimed companion Homo Deus.

From the author of the international bestseller Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind comes an extraordinary follow-up that explores the future of the human species. Humans today enjoy unprecedented levels of power and an increasingly god-like status. The great epidemics of the past—famine, plague and war—no longer control our lives. We are the only species in history that has single-handedly changed the entire planet, and we can no longer blame a higher being for our fate. But as our gods take a back seat, and Homo Sapiens becomes Homo Deus, what are we going to do with ourselves? How do we set the agenda for our own future without pushing our species—and the rest of the world—beyond its limits? In this vivid, challenging new book from the author of Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari examines the implications of our newly upgraded condition, from our dogged pursuit of status and happiness to our constant quest to overcome death by pushing the boundaries of science. He explores how Homo Sapiens conquered the world, our creation of today's human-centred environment, our current predicament and our possible future. And, above all, he asks the fundamental questions: Where do we go from here? And how will we protect this fragile world from our own destructive powers?

Who am I? What do I make of it all? What am I supposed to do now? These three linked questions are fundamental to our lives as humans. Science, religion and philosophy all have something to say about these questions, but they don’t all say the same thing. They don’t even agree about the nature of a human being. The Nature of Things Post Truth looks at each of these questions in turn and then considers the question whether the saying ‘exercise your gift for others’ might be a practical answer to the question, what am I supposed to do now? And points out how it differs from the rule of thumb 'do as you would be done by' commonly used in Christian and other circles as the basis of how we should live our lives. The human race lives in anxious times -- hunger and cruelty and fear always in the news, sometimes close to home. The author takes this as read and gives as a bird’s eye view: it is greed that makes the world go round. Greed and envy. It is not just the money. There are some things which are frequently thought, but never mentioned: too many people trying to live in the world; too many living too long for their own good; religions falling down on the job. This book is about questions which trouble humans from their early teenage years. It is about religion but it is about a great deal more than religion. It encompasses religion and philosophy, and science, especially neuroscience. It is a book for religious persons with minds ajar to the evidence that evolution actually happened, and is happening still.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Destined to become a modern classic in the vein of Guns, Germs, and Steel, Sapiens is a lively, groundbreaking history of humankind told from a unique perspective. 100,000 years ago, at least six species of human inhabited the earth. Today there is just one. Us. Homo Sapiens. How did our species succeed in the battle for dominance? Why did our foraging ancestors come together to create cities and kingdoms? How did we come to believe in gods, nations, and human rights; to trust money, books, and laws; and to be enslaved by bureaucracy, timetables, and consumerism? And what will our world be like in the millennia to come? In Sapiens, Dr. Yuval Noah Harari spans the whole of human history, from the very first humans to walk the earth to the radical -- and sometimes devastating -- breakthroughs of the Cognitive, Agricultural, and Scientific Revolutions. Drawing on insights from biology, anthropology, palaeontology, and economics, he explores how the currents of history have shaped our human societies, the animals and plants around us, and even our personalities. Have we become happier as history has unfolded? Can we ever free our behaviour from the heritage of our ancestors? And what, if anything, can we do to influence the course of the centuries to come? Bold, wide-ranging and provocative, Sapiens challenges everything we thought we knew about being human: our thoughts, our actions, our power...and our future.