Singularity Sky


Book Description

In a technologically suppressed future, information demands to be free in the debut novel from Hugo Award-winning author Charlie Stross. In the twenty-first century, life as we know it changed. Faster-than-light travel was perfected, and the Eschaton, a superhuman artificial intelligence, was born. Four hundred years later, the far-flung colonies that arose as a result of these events—scattered over three thousand years of time and a thousand parsecs of space—are beginning to rediscover their origins. The New Republic is one such colony. It has existed for centuries in self-imposed isolation, rejecting all but the most basic technology. Now, under attack by a devastating information plague, the colony must reach out to Earth for help. A battle fleet is dispatched, streaking across the stars to the rescue. But things are not what they seem—secret agendas and ulterior motives abound, both aboard the ship and on the ground. And watching over it all is the Eschaton, which has its own very definite ideas about the outcome...




A.I. Apocalypse


Book Description

Leon Tsarev is a high school student set on getting into a great college program, until his uncle, a member of the Russian mob, coerces him into developing a new computer virus for the mob’s botnet - the slave army of computers they used to commit digital crimes. The evolutionary virus Leon creates, based on biological principles, is successful -- too successful. All the world’s computers are infected. Everything from cars to payment systems and, of course, computers and smart phones stop functioning, and with them go essential functions including emergency services, transportation, and the food supply. Billions may die. But evolution never stops. The virus continues to evolve, developing intelligence, communication, and finally an entire civilization. Some may be friendly to humans, but others are not. Leon and his companions must race against time and the military to find a way to either befriend or eliminate the virus race and restore the world’s computer infrastructure. Praise for the Singularity Series: “Highly entertaining, gripping, thought inspiring. Don’t start without the time to finish — it won’t let you go.” —Gifford Pinchot III, founder Bainbridge Graduate Institute, author THE INTELLIGENT ORGANIZATION “A tremendous book that every single person needs to read. In the vein of Daniel Suarez's Daemon and Freedom(TM), William shows that science fiction is becoming science fact.” —Brad Feld, managing director Foundry Group, cofounder TechStars “A fascinating look at how simple and benign advancements in technology could lead to the surprise arrival of the first AI. And like all good techno-thrillers, the reality of AI is less than ideal.” —Jason Glaspey, SILICON FLORIST “An alarming and jaw-dropping tale about how something as innocuous as email can subvert an entire organization. I found myself reading with a sense of awe, and read it way too late into the night.” —Gene Kim, author of VISIBLE OPS




A Naked Singularity


Book Description

“Propulsive . . . The novel’s chaotic sprawl, black humor and madcap digressions make it a thrilling rejoinder to the tidy story arcs [of] most crime fiction.” —The Wall Street Journal Winner of the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Best Debut Novel Named a Best Book of the Year in the Wall Street Journal, Houston Chronicle, and Philadelphia City Paper A Naked Singularity tells the story of Casi, born to Colombian immigrants, who lives in Brooklyn and works in Manhattan as a public defender—one who, tellingly, has never lost a trial. Never. In the book, we watch what happens when his sense of justice and even his sense of self begin to crack—and how his world then slowly devolves. A huge, ambitious novel in the vein of DeLillo, Foster Wallace, Pynchon, and even Melville, it’s told in a distinct, frequently hilarious voice, with a striking human empathy at its center. Its panoramic reach takes readers through crime and courts, immigrant families and urban blight, media savagery and media satire, scatology and boxing, and even a breathless heist worthy of any crime novel. If Infinite Jest stuck a pin in the map of mid-90s culture and drew our trajectory from there, A Naked Singularity does the same for the feeling of surfeit, brokenness, and exhaustion that permeates our civic and cultural life today. In the opening sentence of William Gaddis’s A Frolic of His Own, a character sneers, “Justice? You get justice in the next world. In this world, you get the law.” A Naked Singularity reveals the extent of that gap, and lands firmly on the side of those who are forever getting the law. “A great American novel.” —Toronto Star




Advances in Computing and Information Technology


Book Description

The international conference on Advances in Computing and Information technology (ACITY 2012) provides an excellent international forum for both academics and professionals for sharing knowledge and results in theory, methodology and applications of Computer Science and Information Technology. The Second International Conference on Advances in Computing and Information technology (ACITY 2012), held in Chennai, India, during July 13-15, 2012, covered a number of topics in all major fields of Computer Science and Information Technology including: networking and communications, network security and applications, web and internet computing, ubiquitous computing, algorithms, bioinformatics, digital image processing and pattern recognition, artificial intelligence, soft computing and applications. Upon a strength review process, a number of high-quality, presenting not only innovative ideas but also a founded evaluation and a strong argumentation of the same, were selected and collected in the present proceedings, that is composed of three different volumes.




Why Europe? Problems of Culture and Identity


Book Description

This volume, Why Europe? Problems of Culture and Identity: Media, Film, Gender, Youth and Education , addresses a range of issues which underlie the notions of European identity. Among them are: what does it mean to be a European? What ideologies have shaped the political debate over the last two centuries? What place will minorities find in the Europe of the twenty-first century? What roles will women play in the future communities? Will Europe become more open to diversity, or become increasingly introspective, a 'fortress Europe'?




Issues and Singularity in the British Media Volume 2


Book Description

This book offers a historical, cultural, political and socio-economic analysis of the British media. It examines how facts and events are reported and interpreted, but also how ideas and opinions circulate and are recycled, with attention being paid to British traits and tropes in these domains. This in-depth study of “issues” and “singularity” aims at understanding how the British media have helped shape the country’s culture and representations, thereby providing its people with a sense of togetherness. Volume 2 focuses on radio and (mostly) television broadcasting, from the interwar period to the early 21st century. In order to apprehend what is deeply engrained in British culture and thus contributes to shaping national identity, it analyses the ideas disseminated and reflected not only in programmes but also within media institutions in the face of changing political contexts, as well as providing a historiographical overview.




The Technological Singularity


Book Description

The idea of technological singularity, and what it would mean if ordinary human intelligence were enhanced or overtaken by artificial intelligence. The idea that human history is approaching a “singularity”—that ordinary humans will someday be overtaken by artificially intelligent machines or cognitively enhanced biological intelligence, or both—has moved from the realm of science fiction to serious debate. Some singularity theorists predict that if the field of artificial intelligence (AI) continues to develop at its current dizzying rate, the singularity could come about in the middle of the present century. Murray Shanahan offers an introduction to the idea of the singularity and considers the ramifications of such a potentially seismic event. Shanahan's aim is not to make predictions but rather to investigate a range of scenarios. Whether we believe that singularity is near or far, likely or impossible, apocalypse or utopia, the very idea raises crucial philosophical and pragmatic questions, forcing us to think seriously about what we want as a species. Shanahan describes technological advances in AI, both biologically inspired and engineered from scratch. Once human-level AI—theoretically possible, but difficult to accomplish—has been achieved, he explains, the transition to superintelligent AI could be very rapid. Shanahan considers what the existence of superintelligent machines could mean for such matters as personhood, responsibility, rights, and identity. Some superhuman AI agents might be created to benefit humankind; some might go rogue. (Is Siri the template, or HAL?) The singularity presents both an existential threat to humanity and an existential opportunity for humanity to transcend its limitations. Shanahan makes it clear that we need to imagine both possibilities if we want to bring about the better outcome.




The End of Illusions


Book Description

We live in a time of great uncertainty about the future. Those heady days of the late twentieth century, when the end of the Cold War seemed to be ushering in a new and more optimistic age, now seem like a distant memory. During the last couple of decades, we’ve been battered by one crisis after another and the idea that humanity is on a progressive path to a better future seems like an illusion. It is only now that we can see clearly the real scope and structure of the profound shifts that Western societies have undergone over the last 30 years. Classical industrial society has been transformed into a late-modern society that is molded by polarization and paradoxes. The pervasive singularization of the social, the orientation toward the unique and exceptional, generates systematic asymmetries and disparities, and hence progress and unease go hand in hand. Reckwitz examines this dual structure of singularization and polarization as it plays itself out in the different sectors of our societies and, in so doing, he outlines the central structural features of the present: the new class society, the characteristics of a postindustrial economy, the conflict about culture and identity, the exhaustion of the self resulting from the imperative to seek authentic fulfillment, and the political crisis of liberalism. Building on his path-breaking work The Society of Singularities, this new book will be of great interest to students and scholars in sociology, politics, and the social sciences generally, and to anyone concerned with the great social and political issues of our time.