Technology & Society

Three of our most accomplished and deep thinkers come together to explore artificial intelligence (AI) and the way it is transforming human society - and what it means for us all....

Minimalism is the art of knowing how much is just enough. Digital minimalism applies this idea to our personal technology. It's the key to living a focused life in a noisy world. Author Cal Newport introduces a philosophy for technology use that has already improved countless lives....

One of the world's great mathematicians shows why math is the ultimate timesaver - and how everyone can make their lives easier with a few simple shortcuts....

A galvanizing critique of the forces vying for our attention - and our personal information - that redefines what we think of as productivity, reconnects us with the environment, and reveals all that we've been too distracted to see about ourselves and our world....

From the New York Times best-selling authors of Abundance and Bold comes a practical playbook for technological convergence in our modern era....

Today's "machine-learning" systems, trained by data, are so effective that we've invited them to see and hear for us - and to make decisions on our behalf. But alarm bells are ringing. Systems cull résumés until, years later, we discover that they have inherent gender biases.

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism is neither a hand-wringing narrative of danger and decline nor a digital fairy tale. It offers a reasoned and evocative examination of the contests over the next chapter of capitalism that will decide the meaning of information civilization....

From the Sunday Times top ten bestselling author of The Psychopath Test, a captivating and brilliant exploration of one of our world's most underappreciated forces: shame....

From the visionary head of Google's innovative People Operations comes a groundbreaking inquiry into the philosophy of work - and a blueprint for attracting the most spectacular talent to your business and ensuring that they succeed....

You might have trouble imagining life without your social media accounts, but virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier insists that we’re better off without them....

From New York Times best-selling author Cal Newport comes a bold vision for liberating workers from the tyranny of the inbox - and unleashing a new era of productivity....

By the end of on average day in the early 21st century, human beings searching the Internet will amass eight trillion gigabytes of data....

In this explosive yet practical book, Kevin Mitnick illustrates what is happening without your knowledge - and he teaches you "the art of invisibility"....

Welcome to the age of behavioral addiction - an age in which half of the American population is addicted to at least one behavior....

Increasing numbers of parents grapple with children who are acting out without obvious reason. Based on emerging scientific research and extensive clinical experience, child psychiatrist Dr. Victoria Dunckley has pioneered a four-week program to treat the frequent underlying cause....

An entertaining first look at how today's members of iGen - the children, teens, and young adults born in the mid-1990s and later - are vastly different from their millennial predecessors....

A revealing look at how negative biases against women of color are embedded in search engine results and algorithms....

Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google are the four most influential companies on the planet. Just about everyone thinks they know how they got there. They're wrong....

The dramatic, larger-than-life true story behind the founding of Oculus and its quest for virtual reality, by the best-selling author of Console Wars....

In Glow Kids, Dr. Nicholas Kardaras will examine how technology - more specifically, age-inappropriate screen tech, with all of its glowing ubiquity - has profoundly affected the brains of an entire generation....

A mesmerizing, behind-the-scenes business thriller that chronicles how Sega, a small, scrappy gaming company led by an unlikely visionary and a team of rebels, took on Nintendo....

In her mid-20s, at the height of tech industry idealism, Anna Wiener - stuck, broke, and looking for meaning in her work, like any good millennial - left a job in book publishing for the promise of the new digital economy....

People are now exposed to more information than ever before, provided both by technology and by increasing access to every level of education....

From one of our leading technology thinkers and writers, a guide through the 12 technological imperatives that will shape the next 30 years and transform our lives. Much of what will happen in the next 30 years is inevitable, driven by technological trends that are already in motion....

Two defense experts explore the collision of war, politics, and social media, where the most important battles are now only a click away. Through the weaponization of social media, the Internet is changing war and politics, just as war and politics are changing the Internet....

The definitive history, packed with untold stories, of one of America’s most controversial and powerful companies: Facebook....

The Internet of Money by Andreas M. Antonopoulos contains 11 of his most inspiring and thought-provoking talks, including: Introduction to Bitcoin; Blockchain vs Bullshit; Fake News, Fake Money; Currency Wars; Bubble Boy and the Sewer Rat; Rocket Science and Ethereum's Killer App; and many more....

Based on hundreds of interviews with current and former Uber employees, along with previously unpublished documents, Super Pumped is a pause-resisting story of ambition and deception, obscene wealth, and bad behavior....

Steven Levy's classic book traces the exploits of the computer revolution's original hackers - those brilliant and eccentric nerds from the late 1950s through the early '80s who took risks....

Interweaving stories about the science and the people behind it, Artificial Intelligence brims with clear-sighted, captivating, and approachable accounts of the most interesting and provocative modern work in AI, flavored with Mitchell’s humor and personal observations....

Sociologist Felicia Wu Song has spent years considering the personal and collective dynamics of living in digital ecosystems. In this book she combines psychological, neurological, and sociological insights with theological reflection to explore two major questions: What kind of people are we becoming with personal technologies in hand? And who do we really want to be? Song unpacks the soft tyranny of the digital age, including the values embedded in our apps and the economic systems that drive our habits and their subtle yet pervasive effects.

Artificial intelligence is transforming human society fundamentally and profoundly. Not since the Enlightenment and the Age of Reason have we changed how we approach knowledge, politics, economics, even warfare. Three of our most accomplished and deep thinkers come together to explore artificial intelligence (AI) and the way it is transforming human society - and what it means for us all.

 In Democratizing Artificial Intelligence to Benefit Everyone, Dr. Jacques Ludik takes us on a holistic sense-making journey to synthesize and better our understanding of AI, its applications, its benefits, its risks, its limitations, its progress, and its likely future paths. As a founder of multiple AI companies with three decades of experience in AI and its world-wide applications, Dr. Ludik's audiobook offers specific solutions that address designing for social good, building human-compatible AI, and so many more ideas for reshaping civilization for beneficial outcomes! 

Today, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Snap, Samsung, and a host of startups are racing to radically change the way we see. The building blocks are already falling into place: cloud computing and 5G networks, AI computer vision algorithms, smart glasses and VR headsets, and mixed reality games like Pokémon GO. But what’s coming next is a fundamental shift in how we experience the world and interact with each other. Over the next decade, what we see and how we see it will no longer be bound by biology. 

Restart: Designing a Healthy Post Pandemic Life addresses how to work through the stress of the past year, tend to our physical and mental health, and re-align our relationship with technology. Emphasis is placed on habits created during quarantine that may have an impact on mental and physical health. Tools for resolving stress, anxiety, and depression resulting from sheltering in place will be highlighted. Practical tips and tools help listeners walk through the development of norms that will help them live healthier embodied lives.

Which paint color is most likely to tell you that a used car is in good shape? How can officials identify the most dangerous New York City manholes before they explode? And how did Google searches predict the spread of the H1N1 flu outbreak? The key to answering these questions, and many more, is big data.

Early in the crisis, a global volunteer collaboration called Pivot Projects was formed to rethink how the world works. Some members are experts in the sciences and the humanities; others are environmental activists or regular people who see themselves as world citizens. In The Pivot, the journalist Steve Hamm - who embedded in the enterprise from the start - explores their efforts and shows how their approach provides a model for achieving systemic change.  

There's no escaping it - we live in a digital world. We work, play, socialize, and learn online, and the internet provides many amazing opportunities. Unfortunately, because of our basic biology, we're all susceptible to overuse and addiction to screens. Video games, social media, porn, and even scrolling online, taps into that pleasurable dopamine reward system. So, when is it time to log off or put the phone down and get help?