Award-winning journalist David Ewing Duncan sketches twenty-four visions of possible human-robot futures - short scenarios grounded in present-day technologies and ideas, but inspired by imagination. He explores how robots and AI systems may impact on individuals and societies over the next few years, centuries and beyond - for better or for worse.
What robot and AI systems are being built and imagined right now?
What do they say about us, their creators?
Will they usher in a fantastic new future, or destroy us?
While robots and AI both intrigue and make us anxious of the future, we have long been fascinated by the true potential of technology - as well as what robots can tell us about being human. Talking To Robots, written by award-winning journalist David Ewing Duncan explores how present-day technologies and ideas could evolve over the next few years, centuries and beyond - for better or for worse - in twenty-four visions of our possible human-robot futures,
From present-day Facebook and Amazon bots to near-future 'intimacy' and 'the robot that swiped my job' bots, this is a wonderfully entertaining and insightful guide to possible future scenarios about robots, both real and imagined. The book's primary focus is less on how robots work than on what our fixation with bots and AI says about us as humans: our hopes and anxieties; our myths, stories, beliefs and ideas about beings both real and artificial; and our attempts to attain perfection.
These scenarios are informed by discussions with well-known thinkers, engineers, scientists, artists, philosophers and others, who share with us their ideas, hopes and fears of our futures living alongside robots. David interviewed, among others, Kevin Kelly, David Baldacci, Brian Greene, Dean Kamen, Craig Venter, Stephanie Mehta, David Eagleman, George Poste, David Sinclair, Ken Goldberg, Sunny Bates, Adam Gazzaley, Tim O'Reilly, Tiffany Shlain, Eric Topol and Juan Enriquez.
One of the best summer reads of 2019.
