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How we can get more joy from our machines by telling them what our hearts desire. In this informative, accessible, and very funny book, Michael L. Littman inspires listeners to learn how to tell machines what to do for us. Rather than give in to the fear that computers will steal our jobs, spy on us and control what we buy and whom we vote for, we can improve our relationship with them just by learning basic programming skills. Our devices will help us, Littman writes, if we can say what we want in a way they can understand.

Coming up: our verdict on Microsoft's HoloLens VR headset; what to expect from season three of Black Mirror; and DeepMind does the impossible by successfully navigating London's underground network.

Look out for Johnson’s new book, Wonderland, on sale November 15, 2016. From the New York Times–bestselling author of Where Good Ideas Come From and Everything Bad Is Good for You, a new look at the power and legacy of great ideas. In this illustrated history, Steven Johnson explores the...

Garry Kasparov gives his account of his landmark 1997 chess match with the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue, and explains why, twenty years later, he's become convinced that artificial intelligence is good for humans. "This important and optimistic book explains what we as humans are uniquely...

A startling philosophical manifesto for the twenty-first century on freedom of information, Come and Take It is the controversial yet thrilling story of the first ever-3D printable gun, developed by self-described crypto-anarchist and rogue thinker Cody Wilson. In Defense Distributed, Cody...

Edward Ashford Lee explores the ways that engineers use models and abstraction to build inventive artificial worlds and to give us things that we never dreamed of - for example, the ability to carry in our pockets everything humans have ever published. But he also attempts to counter the runaway enthusiasm of some technology boosters who claim everything in the physical world is a computation - that even such complex phenomena as human cognition are software operating on digital data. 

Artificial intelligence powers Google's search engine, enables Facebook to target advertising, and allows Alexa and Siri to do their jobs. AI is also behind self-driving cars, predictive policing, and autonomous weapons that can kill without human intervention. These and other AI applications raise complex ethical issues that are the subject of ongoing debate. This volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series offers an accessible synthesis of these issues.

Bloomsbury presents Techlash by Tom Wheeler, read by Tim H. Dixon. Hailed by Publishers Weekly as "a potent primer on the need to rein in big tech" and Kirkus Reviews as "a rock-solid plan for controlling the tech giants," readers will be energized by Tom Wheeler's vision of digital governance...

The celebrated author of The Making of Second Life and Game Design Secrets Wagner, James Au, delivers an engrossing exploration of how nascent metaverse platforms have already captured the imagination of millions. Featuring powerful stories and dozens of incisive interviews with insiders including Metaverse creator Neal Stephenson himself, the author uses his unique, grassroots-level perspective as the first reporter embedded in a metaverse platform.

The inside story of one woman’s quest to bring transparency and accountability to Big Tech, by the Facebook whistleblower who is determined to help us all retake control of our lives. In 2021, when news outlets feasted on “the Facebook Files,” Frances Haugen went public as the former...

Algorithms—rules written into software—shape key moments in our lives: from who gets hired or admitted to a top public school, to who should go to jail or receive scarce public benefits. Such decisions are both technical and moral. Today, the logic of high stakes software is rarely open to scrutiny, and central moral questions are often left for the technical experts to answer.

2016年3月に筆者はアメリカ・サンフランシスコに出張した。出かける前後、日本で話題になっていたのが、Googleが開発した囲碁用AI「AlphaGo」と、囲碁の世界チャンピオン・李世ドルの対決だ。アメリカでは日本ほど話題になっていないようだが、そこは囲碁というゲームに対する認知度というか、注目度の差かな、と思う。筆者は囲碁にはさほど詳しくない。弱いながら、将棋とチェスはそこそこわかるが、囲碁はルールを知っている程度。場の展開の有利・不利がどうにも見通せない、というレベルに過ぎない。だが、囲碁というゲームの複雑さや、先を読むことの難しさを思うと、ここまでの囲碁用AIが作れたことには、感嘆を禁じえない。囲碁は、ゲーム理論の世界では「二人ゼロサム有限確定完全情報ゲーム」と呼ばれる。意思決定に関わる情報のすべてが盤面に存在するため、コンピュータにとっては比較的与し易いものとされ、AI研究の初期から研究が続けられてきた。それでも囲碁と将棋は難しく、プロに確実に勝つソフトを作るのは、一つの目標とされてきた。(本文より)小寺・西田の「金曜ランチビュッフェ　はこちらから→http://yakan-hiko.com/kode-nishi.html

In an era where robots are increasingly becoming part of our daily lives, we still struggle to define exactly what constitutes a robot.Do robots deserve to be defined by biological markers? How can we differentiate between a mechanical android versus one with synthetic skin? Are robots simply advanced machines that serve as tools for humanity? Will they eventually join the fabric of human society as our agents, advisors, assistants, maids, nurses, and partners? Will they be our servants, equals or superiors? Will we merge with them to become human-robot hybrids?

ダイソンが掃除機や扇風機で蓄積してきたノウハウを活かして参入した“ヘアドライヤー”という新しい事業領域。その高価格（4万5000円）が話題だ。高価だけに、SNSのタイムラインで検索をすると、本当にその価値があるのか？という視点での話題が拡がっている。 また、高価格を肯定するために、必要以上に広告やPRで消費者をミスリードするメッセージを出しすぎているのではないか？　という意見もあった。家電ベンチャーCEREVOを経営する友人の岩佐氏は「618gのドライヤなんて軽くないぞ！　メディアよ、ダイソンのPR戦略に踊らされるな！ ...という話」というブログを書いていた。 ダイソンの製品は悪くないが、そのPR戦略の踊らされているマスコミはおバカであるという指摘だ。実際にお馬鹿な記事が大量にあるかどうかはともかく、ダイソンが“消費者を踊らせるPR戦略”をしているかというと、まったくそんなことはない。(本文より) 本田雅一　続・モバイル通信リターンズはこちらから→http://yakan-hiko.com/honda.html

In The Second Machine Age MIT's Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee—two thinkers at the forefront of their field—reveal the forces driving the reinvention of our lives and our economy. As the full impact of digital technologies is felt, we will realize immense bounty in the form of dazzling personal technology, advanced infrastructure, and near-boundless access to the cultural items that enrich our lives. Amid this bounty will also be wrenching change. Recent economic indicators reflect this shift: fewer people are working, and wages are falling even as productivity and profits soar.

The #1 New York Times Bestseller One of Barack Obama's Summer Reading List Picks From the #1 New York Times bestselling author and MSNBC and podcast host, a powerful wide-angle reckoning with how the assault from attention capitalism on our minds and our hearts has reordered our politics and...

The Mobile Wave argues that the changes brought by mobile computing are so big and widespread that it’s impossible for us to see it all, even though we are all immersed in it. Saylor explains that the current generation of mobile smart phones and tablet computers has set the stage to become the universal computing platform for the world. In the hands of billions of people and accessible anywhere and anytime, mobile computers are poised to become an appendage of the human being and an essential tool for modern life.

Strange New Thoughts, a new HarperCollins book, full description to follow when available...

Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Curtis Yarvin, Balaji Srinivasan. All Silicon Valley movers and shakers. All men with one shared ideal: to deploy cutting-edge technology to exit the world as it is and create new worlds as they want them to be. Bloomberg journalist Gian Volpicelli’s white-knuckle ride...

Seeing fairness through a computational lens More and more of the decisions that shape our lives are driven by algorithms: what healthcare we receive, what loans we are offered, whom we date, the news we read, the schools we attend, and the jobs we get. These systems do not merely assist human...