Stuart Russell (Author)
Creating superior intelligence would be the biggest event in human history. Unfortunately, according to the world's pre-eminent AI expert, it could also be the last.
In this groundbreaking book, Stuart Russell explains why he has come to consider his own discipline an existential threat to his own species, and lays out how we can change course before it's too late. There is no one better placed to assess the promise and perils of the dominant technology of the future than Russell, who has spent decades at the forefront of AI research. Through brilliant analogies and crisp, lucid prose, he explains how AI actually works, how it has an enormous capacity to improve our lives - but why we must ensure that we never lose control of machines more powerful than we are. Here Russell shows how we can avert the worst threats by reshaping the foundations of AI to guarantee that machines pursue our objectives, not theirs.
Profound, urgent and visionary, Human Compatible is the one book everyone needs to read to understand a future that is coming sooner than we think.
Andrew Chen (Author)
'A true Silicon Valley insider' Wired
Why do some products take off? And what can we learn from them?
The hardest part of launching a product is getting started. When you have just an idea and a handful of customers, growth can feel impossible. This is the cold start problem.
Now, one of Silicon Valley's most esteemed investors uncovers how any product can surmount the cold start problem - by harnessing the hidden power of network effects. Drawing on interviews with the founders of Uber, LinkedIn, Airbnb and Zoom, Andrew Chen reveals how any start-up can launch, scale and thrive.
Kenneth Cukier (Author)
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Viktor Mayer-Schoenberger (Author)
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Francis de Vericourt (Author)
A Financial Times and Economist Book of the Year
'Wonderfully stimulating... will teach you to see around corners' - TIM HARFORD
'A paean to cognitive agility and the elasticity of the imagination' - ECONOMIST
'Captivating... will transform the way you think' MARISSA KING, PROFESSOR AT YALE SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT
The power of mental models to make better decisions
We're often told that humans make bad decisions and that more data is better. But this is backwards: people are good at decisions precisely because we use mental models and can envision new realities outside of data. Great outcomes don't depend so much on the final moment of choosing but on generating better alternatives to choose between. That's framing. It's a cognitive muscle we can strengthen to improve our lives, work and future -- to meet this historical moment. Framers shows how.
Herman Narula (Author)
A definitive guide to the metaverse: why it's important, why it matters to society, and how to create a metaverse that works for all of us
The metaverse is a vision of how the next generation of the internet will operate. Many people believe it is the future. But what will that future look like? An immersive digital playground? The next generation of online gaming? Or just the latest manifestation of our human tendency to create other realities?
Herman Narula argues that it is all of these things and more. His vision of the metaverse, deeply rooted in history and psychology, looks to the Egyptians, whose concept of death inspired them to build the pyramids, to modern-day sports fans whose fantasy leagues are as competitive as the real thing, and finds that humanity has always sought ways to supplement our day-to-day lives with a rich diversity of alterative immersive experiences.
Virtual Society reveals why the metaverse offers a new universe of ideas that gives everyone the chance to create, explore and find meaning. It's an essential guide for anyone who wants to understand the true shape of our virtual future.
Seyi Akiwowo (Author)
Digital spaces are a positive force for change, connection and community, but left unregulated, they are not always safe. Globally, women are 27 times more likely than men to be harassed online. This is worse for Black women who are 84% more likely to face online abuse than white women. There has been a 71% rise in online disability abuse and 78% of LGBTQ+ people have experienced hate speech online.
How to Stay Safe Online will teach you how to spot, respond to and proactively defend yourself from online abuse and learn how to be a good ally to those experiencing it. An urgent and necessary digital self-care tool, this book will help you to support victims and empower friends, teachers, parents and willing allies to help make online spaces safer.
With a blend of practical advice, Seyi's personal experiences and interviews with Jameela Jamil, Hera Hussain, Gabby Jahanshahi-Edlin, Laura Bates, Yassmin Abdel-Magied, Luciana Berger, How to Stay Safe Online will:
* Provide practical tips on how to confidently navigate online spaces
* Equip you with a range of responses to online abuse and how to effectively report
* Teach you how to set boundaries and use the internet as a force for good
* Help you create your own digital self-care plan
* Provide information for employers, the media, parents, teachers, tech companies and government on their role in online safety and easy recommendations.
This will be the go-to guide to developing resilience, greater compassion for others and authentic allyship online.
Alice Ross (Author)
Investing responsibly is one of the most powerful ways that you can fight climate change.
No longer a niche sector for rebel fund managers, conscious investing has the potential to raise huge sums of money to the companies and organisations on the front line fighting the climate crisis and make investors positive returns in the process.
In this essential introduction to green investing, Alice Ross shows you how you can turn your savings and pensions, however big or small, into a force for change. You will learn:
- Which sectors are leading the charge by developing cutting-edge solutions; from smart farming to renewable energy
- How to cut through 'alphabet soup' jargon and identify 'greenwashing'
- The ways you can maximise your economic power and hold those you're investing in to account
Taylor Lorenz (Author)
'A terrific history of the online creator economy.' The New York Times
'This book is about a revolution. It has radically upended how we've understood and interacted with our world. It has demolished traditional barriers and empowered millions who were previously marginalized. It has created vast new sectors of our economy, while devastating legacy institutions. It is often dismissed by traditionalists as a vacant fad, when in fact it is the greatest and most disruptive change in modern capitalism.'
Acclaimed Washington Post reporter Taylor Lorenz presents a groundbreaking social history of the internet-revealing how online influence and the creators who amass it have reshaped our world, online and off.
For over a decade, Taylor Lorenz has been the authority on internet culture, documenting its far-reaching effects on all corners of our lives. Her reporting is serious yet entertaining and illuminates deep truths about ourselves and the lives we create online. In her debut book, Extremely Online, she reveals how online influence came to upend the world, demolishing traditional barriers and creating whole new sectors of the economy.
By tracing how the internet has changed what we want and how we go about getting it, Lorenz unearths how social platforms' power users radically altered our expectations of content, connection, purchasing, and power. Lorenz documents how moms who started blogging were among the first to monetize their personal brands online, how bored teens who began posting selfie videos reinvented fame as we know it, and how young creators on TikTok are leveraging opportunities to opt out of the traditional career pipeline. It's the real social history of the internet.
Emerging seemingly out of nowhere, these shifts in how we use the internet seem easy to dismiss as fads. However, these social and economic transformations created a digital dynamic so unappreciated and insurgent that it ultimately created new approaches to work, entertainment, fame, and ambition in the 21st century.
Extremely Online is the inside, untold story of what we have done to the internet, and what it has done to us.
Andrew Blum (Author)
The Internet. Home to the most important and intimate aspects of our lives. Our careers, our relationships, our selves, all of them are out there - online. So ... where is that exactly? And who's in charge again? And what if it breaks?
In Tubes Andrew Blum takes us on a gripping backstage tour of the real but hidden world of the Internet, introducing us to the remarkable clan of insiders and eccentrics who own, design and run it everyday. He uncovers the secret data warehouses where our online selves are stored, peels back the wires that transport us across the globe, reveals its mammoth hubs and surprising alley-ways, explaining what the Internet actually is, where it is, how it got there - and, yes, what happens when it breaks.
