Digital Minds 2

The progression of the Internet hasn’t slowed down one bit; in fact, it’s only just begun. And with capabilities like visitor tracking, geo-targeting and personalized marketing, the business competition on the digital playing field has become more aggressive than ever. The advancements are rapid; adaptation is vital. And yet, business owners are either too tentative to dive in or want to get started but just don’t know where to begin. In the 2nd edition of WSI’s Digital Minds, we provide a map (literally!) that’s designed to help professionals navigate through the complexities of the digital marketing realm. Fourteen of WSI’s thought-leaders explore how online strategies like web design, marketing automation, eCommerce, SEO, reputation management, email marketing and more have been shaped by online consumers and their mobile device du jour! By evolving alongside the growing trends, your brand will be equipped to leave the competition far behind.

How developments in science and technology may enable the emergence of purely digital minds—intelligent machines equal to or greater in power than the human brain. What do computers, cells, and brains have in common? Computers are electronic devices designed by humans; cells are biological entities crafted by evolution; brains are the containers and creators of our minds. But all are, in one way or another, information-processing devices. The power of the human brain is, so far, unequaled by any existing machine or known living being. Over eons of evolution, the brain has enabled us to develop tools and technology to make our lives easier. Our brains have even allowed us to develop computers that are almost as powerful as the human brain itself. In this book, Arlindo Oliveira describes how advances in science and technology could enable us to create digital minds. Exponential growth is a pattern built deep into the scheme of life, but technological change now promises to outstrip even evolutionary change. Oliveira describes technological and scientific advances that range from the discovery of laws that control the behavior of the electromagnetic fields to the development of computers. He calls natural selection the ultimate algorithm, discusses genetics and the evolution of the central nervous system, and describes the role that computer imaging has played in understanding and modeling the brain. Having considered the behavior of the unique system that creates a mind, he turns to an unavoidable question: Is the human brain the only system that can host a mind? If digital minds come into existence—and, Oliveira says, it is difficult to argue that they will not—what are the social, legal, and ethical implications? Will digital minds be our partners, or our rivals?

In today's marketing world, it isn't a question of whether you're doing digital marketing; it's a question of whether you're doing it better than your competitors! Over the years, digital marketing has become more and more complex and competitive. If you want to generate more leads and sales, expand your brand awareness, and build a loyal customer base, average digital marketing won't cut it. You need a plan that will outperform the competition and resonate with your target audience. If your digital strategy isn't bringing you the results you want, it may need some fine-tuning. In this book, some of WSI's most experienced thought-leaders will walk you through the 12 key components of an effective digital strategy. You'll learn how to leverage competitive research and well-defined buyer personas to compose a marketing plan that makes sense for your business. As well as marketing best practices on digital advertising, chatbots, video marketing, SEO, social, and lead nurturing that you can implement right away.

Attention in the AI safety community has increasingly started to include strategic considerations of coordination between relevant actors in the field of AI and AI safety, in addition to the steadily growing work on the technical considerations of building safe AI systems. This shift has several reasons: Multiplier effects, pragmatism, and urgency. Given the benefits of coordination between those working towards safe superintelligence, this book surveys promising research in this emerging field regarding AI safety. On a meta-level, the hope is that this book can serve as a map to inform those working in the field of AI coordination about other promising efforts. While this book focuses on AI safety coordination, coordination is important to most other known existential risks (e.g., biotechnology risks), and future, human-made existential risks. Thus, while most coordination strategies in this book are specific to superintelligence, we hope that some insights yield “collateral benefits” for the reduction of other existential risks, by creating an overall civilizational framework that increases robustness, resiliency, and antifragility.

This book reveals the core features of digital culture, examined by means of semiotic models and theories. It positions commercial and market principles in the center of the digital semiosphere, avoiding the need to force the new cultural reality into the established textualist or pragmatist paradigms. The theoretic insights and case studies presented here argue for new semiotic models of inquiry that include working with big data, user experience and nethnography, along with conventional approaches. The book develops a new concept of identity in the digital age, analyzing the digital flows of recognition and value, which led to the tremendous success of Social Media and the Web 2.0 era. Self-expression, entertainment and consumerism are seen as the major drivers of identity formation in the post-truth era, where the self can no longer be considered independently of a given person’s communication devices, where a substantial part of it is stored and actualized. It will be of interest to semioticians and researchers working on digital culture.

This book is an exploration of new age computer technology and Artificial Intelligence as well as the future of computer design which will bring A.I. into reality. This is an in depth look at the future of this technology, where it's going and what it will mean for mankind.

How to leverage the enduring human need for analogue experiences to attract and retain more customers in a digital world. Anything that can be digitised will be digitised. But can the digital-connect ever really replace the personal touch? Is word-of-mouse always more effective than word-of-mouth? And what of customers’ enduring need for analogue experiences (think analogue watches, paperback books and multiplex movie theatres, for example). In your rush to embrace your customers' digital mind are you ignoring an equally valuable asset: their analogue heart? Better yet, how can you leverage the analogue heart to provide your company or brand with an unbeatable competitive edge? The answer, according to internationally acclaimed futurist, Anders Sormon-Nilsson is Digilogue — the "translational sweet-spot, the convergence of the digital and the analogue." A book that will revolutionise how you do business in a digital world, Digilogue provides powerful insights, strategies and tools to help you provide value to digital minds, while connecting with analogue hearts.

Given that a representational system's phenomenal experience must be intrinsic to it and must therefore arise from its own temporal dynamics, consciousness is best understood — indeed, can only be understood — as being in time. Despite that, it is still acceptable for theories of consciousness to be summarily exempted from addressing the temporality of phenomenal experience. The chapters comprising this book represent a collective attempt on the part of their authors to redress this aberration. The diverse treatments of phenomenal consciousness range in their methodology from philosophy, through surveys and synthesis of behavioral and neuroscientific findings, to computational analysis. This collection's broad scope and integrative approach, characterized by the view of the brain as a dynamical system that computes the mind's representation space, will be of interest to researchers, instructors, and students in the cognitive sciences wishing to acquaint themselves with the current thinking in consciousness research. Series B.