{"title":"Social Aspects","description":"\u003cp\u003eSocial aspects in technology and engineering examine how technological advances and engineering practices influence—and are influenced by—society at large. This subject explores ethical, cultural, economic, and environmental questions that arise from the development and use of technology. Readers engaging with social aspects navigate topics ranging from privacy and labor implications to sustainability and global connectivity.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTo further refine your understanding of the human and societal dimensions of technology, consider the specific issues or contexts of interest: ethics, policy, or the historical evolution of technologies. For those seeking insight beyond technical function, focusing on the social aspects category helps pinpoint discussions about broader consequences and responsibilities tied to technological progress.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"carrier-bag-theory-fiction-9781838003982-new","title":"The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction","description":"In \u003ci\u003eThe Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction, \u003c\/i\u003e visionary author Ursula K. Le Guin retells the story of human origin by redefining technology as a cultural carrier bag rather than a weapon of domination. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHacking the linear, progressive mode of the Techno-Heroic, the Carrier Bag Theory of human evolution proposes: 'before the tool that forces energy outward, we made the tool that brings energy home.' Prior to the preeminence of sticks, swords and the Hero's long, hard, killing tools, our ancestors' greatest invention was the container: the basket of wild oats, the medicine bundle, the net made of your own hair, the home, the shrine, the place that contains whatever is sacred. The recipient, the holder, the story. The bag of stars. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis influential essay opens a portal to terra ignota: unknown lands where the possibilities of human experience and knowledge can be discovered anew. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith a new introduction by Donna Haraway, the eminent cyberfeminist, author of the revolutionary A Cyborg Manifesto and most recently, Staying with the Trouble and Manifestly Haraway. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith images by Lee Bul, a leading South Korean feminist artist who had a retrospective at London's Hayward Gallery in 2018.","brand":"COSMOGENESIS","offers":[{"title":"New","offer_id":51574415294754,"sku":"9781838003982-new","price":11.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0893\/4755\/5618\/files\/9781838003982.jpg?v=1777342929"},{"product_id":"empire-ai-dreams-nightmares-sam-altmans-openai-9780593657508-new","title":"Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI","description":"\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e Notable Book - Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction - A \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e Bestseller - Named a Best Book of the Year by \u003ci\u003eSmithsonian\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eScientific American, \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eElle -\u003c\/i\u003e Winner of the \u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e Book Prize, NYPL Helen Bernstein Award, Whiting Award, Nautilus Book Award, and Porchlight Business Book Award\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"A bestselling page-turner that has made waves not just in Silicon Valley but around the world . . . 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Founded as a nonprofit with safety enshrined, the organization was meant to act as a check against more purely mercantile forces. What could go wrong? \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOver time, Hao wrestled with that question. Increasingly, she realized that this disruptive sector's vision of success requires an unprecedented amount of resources: the \"compute\" power of high-end chips and the processing capacity to create massive large language models, the sheer volume of data that needs to be amassed at scale, the humans \"cleaning up\" that data for sweatshop wages throughout the Global South, and a truly alarming spike in the usage of energy and water underlying it all. We have entered a new age of empire where only a handful of globally scaled companies can enter the field of play. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eArmed with billions, pushing on trillions, OpenAI is setting a breakneck pace--toward what end, not even they can define. All this time, Hao has maintained deep sourcing within the company and the industry, keeping in intimate contact with the story that shocked the entire tech industry--Altman's sudden firing and triumphant return. The behind-the-scenes of what happened is revelatory of who the people controlling this technology really are. But this isn't just the story of a single company. As Hao shows through intrepid global reporting, the enormous wheels of extraction grind on. An astonishing eyewitness view from both the command capsule of the new economy and where the real suffering happens, Empire of AI pierces the veil of the industry defining our era.","brand":"PENGUIN PR","offers":[{"title":"New","offer_id":51578619756834,"sku":"9780593657508-new","price":25.14,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0893\/4755\/5618\/files\/9780593657508.jpg?v=1777410076"},{"product_id":"coming-wave-ai-power-our-future-9780593593974-new","title":"The Coming Wave: Ai, Power, and Our Future","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNEW YORK TIMES\u003c\/i\u003e BESTSELLER - An urgent warning of the unprecedented risks that AI and other fast-developing technologies pose to global order, and how we might contain them while we have the chance--from a co-founder of the pioneering artificial intelligence company DeepMind and current CEO of Microsoft AI, with a new afterword\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A fascinating, well-written, and important book.\"--Yuval Noah Harari\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e \"Essential reading.\"--Daniel Kahneman\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"My favorite book on AI.\"--Bill Gates, GatesNotes\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA Best Book of the Year: CNN, \u003ci\u003eEconomist, Bloomberg, Politico Playbook, Financial Times, The Guardian, CEO Magazine, Semafor \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e- \u003cb\u003eWinner of the \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eInc.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e Non-Obvious Book Award \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e- Finalist for the Porchlight Business Book Award and the \u003ci\u003eFinancial Times\u003c\/i\u003e and Schroders Business Book of the Year Award \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe are approaching a critical threshold in the history of our species. Everything is about to change. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSoon you will live surrounded by AIs. They will organize your life, operate your business, and run core government services. You will live in a world of DNA printers and quantum computers, engineered pathogens and autonomous weapons, robot assistants and abundant energy. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNone of us are prepared. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs co-founder of the pioneering AI company DeepMind, part of Google, Mustafa Suleyman has been at the center of this revolution. The coming decade, he argues, will be defined by this wave of powerful, fast-proliferating new technologies. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eThe Coming Wave\u003c\/i\u003e, Suleyman shows how these forces will create immense prosperity but also threaten the nation-state, the foundation of global order. As our fragile governments sleepwalk into disaster, we face an existential dilemma: unprecedented harms on one side, the threat of overbearing surveillance on the other. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHow do we ensure the flourishing of humankind? How do we maintain control? How do we navigate the narrow path to a successful future? \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis groundbreaking book from the ultimate AI insider establishes \"the containment problem\"--the task of maintaining control over powerful technologies--as the essential challenge of our age.","brand":"CROWN PUB INC","offers":[{"title":"New","offer_id":51578877247778,"sku":"9780593593974-new","price":17.72,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0893\/4755\/5618\/files\/9780593593974.jpg?v=1777415378"},{"product_id":"reverse-centaurs-guide-life-after-ai-how-think-about-artificial-intelligence-before-its-too-late-9780374621568-new","title":"The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI: How to Think about Artificial Intelligence--Before It's Too Late","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAN INSTANT \u003ci\u003eNEW YORK TIMES \u003c\/i\u003eBESTSELLER\u003cbr\u003eNational Indie Bestseller\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"[Doctorow] resembles the great rock critics of an earlier era, a high-tech Greil Marcus or even a Lester Bangs.\" --Stephen Marche, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA short, provocative guide to what's good, bad, and stupid about AI and the discourse around AI, by the author of \u003ci\u003eEnshittification\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn modern tech parlance, a \u003ci\u003ecentaur \u003c\/i\u003eis a person who is able to use technology to be a better, more productive version of themself. A \u003ci\u003ereverse centaur\u003c\/i\u003e is a person who is forced by technology to work at an inhuman pace--a driver made to deliver all day long, nonstop; a warehouse worker made to work without food or bathroom breaks; a programmer made to crank out impossible amounts of code. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI \u003c\/i\u003eis not another anti-AI screed. Cory Doctorow uses AI in his work every day. As a creative person, he has no moral or dogmatic issue with AI--he thinks the technology is useful, even exciting, and full of potential. And yet. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAI has arrived surrounded by unprecedented hype driven by a tech industry desperate to maintain its unprecedented valuation based on its own promises of endless financial growth. Despite the fact that almost all of AI's real-world implementations have proved underwhelming, AI is projected to be worth more than $16 trillion--a number that only makes sense if AI replaces vast swathes of the wage-earning human workforce. To justify that level of \"value,\" every story about AI must be presented as inevitable, world-changing disruption. Even the tales of the robot apocalypse are a calculated attempt to bolster the fearsome power of AI. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor Doctorow, it is imperative to see through that hype to the real story, to understand the technology not just for what it does, but for who it does it to and who it does it for. From that point of view, the story of AI is indeed dramatic and unprecedented, having generated an investment bubble so big that it endangers the entire world economy. 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Treat AI as a cognitive trainer, not a replacement.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRich with takeaways for professionals, parents, and everyone trying to understand AI's perils and promise, \u003cem\u003eThe Collision\u003c\/em\u003e is an essential guide for using AI without losing yourself.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"W W NORTON \u0026 CO","offers":[{"title":"New","offer_id":52605230383394,"sku":"9781324124627-new","price":23.87,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0893\/4755\/5618\/files\/9781324124627.jpg?v=1790036524"},{"product_id":"industrial-society-its-future-9780994790149-new","title":"Industrial Society and Its Future","description":"In 1971 Dr. Theodore Kaczynski rejected modern society and moved to a primitive cabin in the woods of Montana. There, he began building bombs, which he sent to professors and executives to express his disdain for modern society, and to work on his magnum opus, Industrial Society and Its Future, forever known to the world as the Unabomber Manifesto. Responsible for three deaths and more than twenty casualties over two decades, he was finally identifed and apprehended when his brother recognized his writing style while reading the 'Unabomber Manifesto.' The piece, written under the pseudonym FC (Freedom Club) was published in the New York Times after his promise to cease the bombing if a major publication printed it in its entirety.","brand":"LIGHTNING SOURCE INC","offers":[{"title":"New","offer_id":52605574611234,"sku":"9780994790149-new","price":20.2,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0893\/4755\/5618\/files\/9780994790149.jpg?v=1790042954"},{"product_id":"empire-ai-dreams-nightmares-sam-altmans-openai-9780593657522-new","title":"Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI","description":"\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e Notable Book - Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction - A \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e Bestseller - Named a Best Book of the Year by \u003ci\u003eSmithsonian\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eScientific American, \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eElle -\u003c\/i\u003e Winner of the \u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e Book Prize, NYPL Helen Bernstein Award, Whiting Award, Nautilus Book Award, and Porchlight Business Book Award \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A bestselling page-turner that has made waves not just in Silicon Valley but around the world . . . With \u003ci\u003eEmpire of AI, \u003c\/i\u003eHao is fundamentally shaping many people's perceptions and understanding of the company at the center of the AI revolution.\" \u003ci\u003e--TIME Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e, \"TIME100 AI 2025\" \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Excellent and deeply reported.\" --Tim Wu, \u003ci\u003e The New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Startling and intensely researched . . . an essential account of how OpenAI and ChatGPT came to be and the catastrophic places they will likely take us.\" --\u003ci\u003eVulture \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eFrom a brilliant longtime AI insider with intimate access to the world of Sam Altman's OpenAI from the beginning, an eye-opening account of arguably the most fateful tech arms race in history, reshaping the planet in real time, from the cockpit of the company that is driving the frenzy\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen AI expert and investigative journalist Karen Hao first began covering OpenAI in 2019, she thought they were the good guys. Founded as a nonprofit with safety enshrined as its core mission, the organization was meant, its leader Sam Altman told us, to act as a check against more purely mercantile, and potentially dangerous, forces. What could go wrong? \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOver time, Hao began to wrestle ever more deeply with that question. Increasingly, she realized that the core truth of this massively disruptive sector is that its vision of success requires an almost unprecedented amount of resources: the \"compute\" power of high-end chips and the processing capacity to create massive large language models, the sheer volume of data that needs to be amassed at scale, the humans \"cleaning up\" that data for sweatshop wages throughout the Global South, and a truly alarming spike in the usage of energy and water underlying it all. The truth is that we have entered a new and ominous age of empire: only a small handful of globally scaled companies can even enter the field of play. At the head of the pack with its ChatGPT breakthrough, how would OpenAI resist such temptations? \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSpoiler alert: it didn't. Armed with Microsoft's billions, OpenAI is setting a breakneck pace, chased by a small group of the most valuable companies in human history--toward what end, not even they can define. All this time, Hao has maintained her deep sourcing within the company and the industry, and so she was in intimate contact with the story that shocked the entire tech industry--Altman's sudden firing and triumphant return. The behind-the-scenes story of what happened, told here in full for the first time, is revelatory of who the people controlling this technology really are. But this isn't just the story of a single company, however fascinating it is. The g forces pressing down on the people of OpenAI are deforming the judgment of everyone else too--as such forces do. Naked power finds the ideology to cloak itself; no one thinks they're the bad guy. But in the meantime, as Hao shows through intrepid reporting on the ground around the world, the enormous wheels of extraction grind on. By drawing on the viewpoints of Silicon Valley engineers, Kenyan data laborers, and Chilean water activists, Hao presents the fullest picture of AI and its impact we've seen to date, alongside a trenchant analysis of where things are headed. An astonishing eyewitness view from both up in the command capsule of the new economy and down where the real suffering happens, \u003ci\u003eEmpire of AI\u003c\/i\u003e pierces the veil of the industry defining our era.","brand":"PENGUIN GROUP","offers":[{"title":"New","offer_id":67514752696610,"sku":"9780593657522-new","price":17.72,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0893\/4755\/5618\/files\/9780593657522.jpg?v=1791851170"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.albakireads.com\/collections\/technology-engineering-social-aspects.oembed","provider":"AlbakiReads","version":"1.0","type":"link"}