The Humachine


Book Description

There is a lot of hype, hand-waving, and ink being spilled about artificial intelligence (AI) in business. The amount of coverage of this topic in the trade press and on shareholder calls is evidence of a large change currently underway. It is awesome and terrifying. You might think of AI as a major environmental factor that is creating an evolutionary pressure that will force enterprise to evolve or perish. For those companies that do survive the "silicon wave" sweeping through the global economy, the issue becomes how to keep their humanity amidst the tumult. What started as an inquiry into how executives can adopt AI to harness the best of human and machine capabilities turned into a much more profound rumination on the future of humanity and enterprise. This is a wake-up call for business leaders across all sectors of the economy. Not only should you implement AI regardless of your industry, but once you do, you should fight to stay true to your purpose, your ethical convictions, indeed your humanity, even as our organizations continue to evolve. While not holding any punches about the dangers posed by overpowered AI, this book uniquely surveys where technology is limited, and gives reason for cautious optimism about the true opportunities that lie amidst all the disruptive change currently underway. As such, it is distinctively more optimistic than many of the competing titles on Big Technology. This compelling book weaves together business strategy and philosophy of mind, behavioral psychology and the limits of technology, leadership and law. The authors set out to identify where humans and machines can best complement one another to create an enterprise greater than the sum total of its parts: the Humachine. Combining the global business and forecasting acumen of Professor Nada R. Sanders, PhD, with the legal and philosophical insight of John D. Wood, Esq., the authors combine their strengths to bring us this profound yet accessible book. This is a "must read" for anyone interested in AI and the future of human enterprise.




Purpose, Incorporated


Book Description

Too many working professionals still subscribe to the old Milton-Friedman logic that "businesses' sole purpose is to generate profit for shareholders." In this revolutionary book, authors John Wood and Amalia McGibbon show once and for all that cause is not the enemy of commercialism, but perhaps the new key to it. Based on over 100 interviews with entrepreneurs, executives and front-line staff, Wood and McGibbon provide a breath-taking tour of this new and inspiring world. You'll learn from mom-and-pop shops and corporate giants like Google and Goldman Sachs why corporate social responsibility is more than just a buzzword or publicity stunt, but instead represents the new competitive advantage. You'll learn how to: - win the war for talent - create a compelling bond with customers - motivate employees - reduce attrition - appease the regulators - and create a positive buzz on social media Purpose Incorporated is a "permission slip" to those businesspeople who want to have a positive impact on the world, but worry the corner office or cubicle isn't the place for it.




The Sewing Girl's Tale


Book Description

New York Times Editors’ Choice Winner of the Bancroft Prize Winner of the Francis Parkman Prize Winner of the Gotham Book Prize Winner of the New York Society Library's New York City Book Award Journal of the American Revolution Book of the Year Winner of the David J. Langum, Sr. Prize in American Legal History A riveting Revolutionary Era drama of the first published rape trial in American history and its long, shattering aftermath, revealing how much has changed over two centuries—and how much has not On a moonless night in the summer of 1793 a crime was committed in the back room of a New York brothel—the kind of crime that even victims usually kept secret. Instead, seventeen-year-old seamstress Lanah Sawyer did what virtually no one in US history had done before: she charged a gentleman with rape. Her accusation sparked a raw courtroom drama and a relentless struggle for vindication that threatened both Lanah’s and her assailant’s lives. The trial exposed a predatory sexual underworld, sparked riots in the streets, and ignited a vigorous debate about class privilege and sexual double standards. The ongoing conflict attracted the nation’s top lawyers, including Alexander Hamilton, and shaped the development of American law. The crime and its consequences became a kind of parable about the power of seduction and the limits of justice. Eventually, Lanah Sawyer did succeed in holding her assailant accountable—but at a terrible cost to herself. Based on rigorous historical detective work, this book takes us from a chance encounter in the street into the sanctuaries of the city’s elite, the shadows of its brothels, and the despair of its debtors’ prison. The Sewing Girl's Tale shows that if our laws and our culture were changed by a persistent young woman and the power of words two hundred years ago, they can be changed again. Includes photographs




A House in St John’s Wood: In Search of My Parents


Book Description

An intimate portrait of Stephen Spender’s extraordinary life written by Matthew Spender, shifting between memoir and biography, with new insights drawn from personal recollections and his father’s copious unpublished archives.







Confederate Seadog


Book Description

John Taylor Wood, the grandson of President Zachary Taylor and a nephew of Jefferson Davis, was one of the most daring and remarkable participants of the Civil War and among the few people to hold dual rank in the Confederate military as a captain in the Confederate States Navy (CSN) and a colonel in the cavalry. Wood was widely known for his wartime activities, but at the time of his death in 1904, he had been largely forgotten. This work combines a thorough biography of John Taylor Wood and three of his memoirs that were published in Century magazine between 1885 and 1898. The biography gives special attention to Wood's childhood and youth, such as his harrowing experiences in Florida during the Seminole Wars, his service in the United States Navy during and after the Mexican War, his experiences in California during the Gold Rush and his leading role among the members of the little-known postwar Confederate naval colony in Halifax, Nova Scotia, organized to fight the Fenian forces for the British in 1866. His writings about the war and other literary activities, and his friendship with William Hall, the first African American to win the Victoria Cross are covered. The memoirs in this book cover his service on the CSS Virginia, the cruise of the CSS Tallahassee (of which he was the commander), and his gutsy escape from the South as the Confederacy collapsed.




Truth in Fiction


Book Description

This monograph examines truth in fiction by applying the techniques of a naturalized logic of human cognitive practices. The author structures his project around two focal questions. What would it take to write a book about truth in literary discourse with reasonable promise of getting it right? What would it take to write a book about truth in fiction as true to the facts of lived literary experience as objectivity allows? It is argued that the most semantically distinctive feature of the sentences of fiction is that they areunambiguously true and false together. It is true that Sherlock Holmes lived at 221B Baker Street and also concurrently false that he did. A second distinctive feature of fiction is that the reader at large knows of this inconsistency and isn’t in the least cognitively molested by it. Why, it is asked, would this be so? What would explain it? Two answers are developed. According to the no-contradiction thesis, the semantically tangled sentences of fiction are indeed logically inconsistent but not logically contradictory. According to the no-bother thesis, if the inconsistencies of fiction were contradictory, a properly contrived logic for the rational management of inconsistency would explain why readers at large are not thrown off cognitive stride by their embrace of those contradictions. As developed here, the account of fiction suggests the presence of an underlying three - or four-valued dialethic logic. The author shows this to be a mistaken impression. There are only two truth-values in his logic of fiction. The naturalized logic of Truth in Fiction jettisons some of the standard assumptions and analytical tools of contemporary philosophy, chiefly because the neurotypical linguistic and cognitive behaviour of humanity at large is at variance with them. Using the resources of a causal response epistemology in tandem with the naturalized logic, the theory produced here is data-driven, empirically sensitive, and open to a circumspect collaboration with the empirical sciences of language and cognition.




As the Prop Turns


Book Description

Historical biographies and best sellers-make room for this incredible airplane book. Experience flying by the seat of your pants with the men and women who flew the antique open-cockpit biplane Waco UPF-7 NC29923, a really old plane still flying today. Enjoy true escapades as you soar with World War II pilots, crop dusters, a tax evader, a missionary dentist, a prominent artist, and a drug smuggler throughout their flying careers. Learn how NC29923 nearly met total destruction only to be rebuilt several times. As the Prop Turns, by John Wood, fits well with other true adventure books for adults, and few airplane pilot books contain as many detailed stories about any Waco UPF-7. With thousands of research hours and more than 130 photographs, drawings, and maps, this airplane's memoir is sure to top the true adventure best sellers list.




The Kicker of St. John's Wood


Book Description

This is a story of America in the year 2020: Fractured socially and politically, its enemies are gaining ground and its civil liberties are threatened like never before. Jayesh Blackstone, a professional football player, finds himself at the focal point of an historic experiment: a woman is going to play in a football game, and it will happen in the Super Bowl. It turns out that this is just a foretaste of the metamorphosis that is taking shape. The very same event is the venue for an announcement by world leaders of a new order, one that defines humanity exclusively in terms of race and gender. The new reality steadily encroaches on Blackstone's world; he is compelled to choose his allies, declare his identity, and determine the price he is willing to pay to live the life of a free individual. Embracing controversy from its very first pages, The Kicker of St. John's Wood is a rampage through the pantheon of contemporary idols, and a literary journey into the American national psyche of the twenty-first century.