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Cloud Atlas: A Novel

October 9, 2012

Cloud Atlas

Author:
David Mitchell
Publisher:
Random House Trade Paperbacks (2004)

Now a major motion picture starring Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Susan Sarandon, and Hugh Grant, and directed by Lana and Andy Wachowski and Tom Tykwer

A postmodern visionary who is also a master of styles of genres, David Mitchell combines flat-out adventure, a Nabokovian lore of puzzles, a keen eye for character, and a taste for mind-bending philosophical and scientific speculation in the tradition of Umberto Eco and Philip… read more

Living with the Genie: Essays On Technology And The Quest For Human Mastery

June 16, 2011

Living with the Genie book cover

Author:
Alan Lightman, Daniel Sarewitz, Christina Desser
Publisher:
Island Press (2004)

Amazon | Biotechnology, Cloning, Robotics, Nanotechnology…

At a time when scientific and technological breakthroughs keep our eyes focused on the latest software upgrades or the newest cell-phone wizardry, a group of today’s most innovative thinkers are looking beyond the horizon to explore both the promise and the peril of our technological future.

Human ingenuity has granted us a world of unprecedented personal power — enabling us to… read more

Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever

May 1, 2010

fantastic voyage book

Author:
Ray Kurzweil
Publisher:
Rodale Books (2004)

Amazon | The idea behind Kurzweil and Grossman’s Fantastic Voyage is that if you can make it through the next 50 years, you might become immortal. How will that be possible? Through some rather science fictional steps, it turns out, including taking advantage of the latest in biotechnological breakthroughs and not-yet-invented nanotechnology.

Is all this longing for immortality driven by an obsession with youth or a fear of death?… read more

Centauri Dreams: Imagining and Planning Interstellar Exploration

April 9, 2009

centauri dreams

Author:
Paul Gilster
Publisher:
Springer (2004)

Why, today, would anyone undertake a plan to launch a spacecraft some 30 years in the future, and on a journey that would take some 40 years to complete? Paul Gilster investigates the science, and the spirit, of the NASA and JPL researchers who are actually at work on just such a project.  — Science Daily

Robotics Demystified

February 7, 2011

Robotics_demystified_a

Author:
Edwin Wise
Publisher:
McGraw-Hill Professional (2004)

This is a self-teaching guide approach to introductory robotics, guiding readers through the essential electronics, mechanics, and programming skills necessary to build their first robot.  Each lesson in robotics is presented step by step with exercises to reinforce the ideas of each lesson. Topics include essential electronics, mechanics, and programming concepts, mobile, industrial, and research ‘bots, and how to make robots sense and think.

Kinematic Self-Replicating Machines

April 9, 2009
Author:
Robert A. Freitas Jr., Ralph C. Merkle
Publisher:
Landes Bioscience (2004)

This book offers a general review of the voluminous theoretical and experimental literature pertaining to physical self-replicating systems and self-replication. The principal focus here is on self-replicating machine systems. Most importantly, we are concerned with kinematic self-replicating machines: systems in which actual physical objects, not mere patterns of information, undertake their own replication.

Following a brief burst of activity in the 1950s and 1980s, the field… read more

Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future

July 16, 2010

Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future

Author:
James Hughes
Publisher:
Unknown (2004)

Amazon | In the next fifty years, life spans will extend well beyond a century. Our senses and cognition will be enhanced. We will have greater control over our emotions and memory. Our bodies and brains will be surrounded by and merged with computer power. The limits of the human body will be transcended as technologies such as artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and genetic engineering converge and accelerate. With them,… read more

The New Normal: Great Opportunities in a Time of Great Risk

August 3, 2011

The New Normal book cover

Author:
Roger McNamee, David Diamond
Publisher:
Portfolio Hardcover (2004)

Amazon | Back in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, it was fairly easy to plan for a secure future. People picked a career, a spouse, and a place to live, and those basic decisions put them on a predictable course for the rest of their lives. Especially if they were lucky enough to land at a big corporation with great benefits and smart enough to buy stocks.… read more

Power, Madness and Immortality

April 12, 2009

power madness immortality

Author:
Mychilo Cline
Publisher:
University Village Press (2005)

There has been increasing interest in the potential social impact of new technologies, such as virtual reality (as may be seen in utopian literature, within the social sciences, and in popular culture). Mychilo S. Cline, in his book, Power, Madness, and Immortality: The Future of Virtual Reality, argues that virtual reality will lead to a number of important changes in human life and activity. He argues that:

*… read more

The Artilect War: Cosmists Vs. Terrans

December 15, 2010

Theartilectwar

Author:
Hugo de Garis
Publisher:
ETC Publications (2005)

Amazon |  This book’s main idea is that this century’s global politics will be dominated by the “species dominance” issue.  21st century technologies will enable the building of artilects (artificial intellects, artificial intelligences, massively intelligent machines) with 1040 components, using reversible, heatless, 3D, molecular scale, self assembling, one bit per atom, nano-teched, quantum computers, which may dwarf human intelligence levels by a factor of trillions of trillions… read more

More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement

July 16, 2010

More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement

Author:
Ramez Naam
Publisher:
Broadway (2005)

Amazon | Imagine a person severely disabled by a stroke who, with electrodes implanted in his brain, can type on a computer just by thinking of the letters. Or a man, blind for 20 years, driving a car around a parking lot via a camera hard-wired into his brain. Plots for science fiction? No, it’s already happened, according to future technologies expert Naam. In an excellent and comprehensive survey,… read more

Nanofuture: What’s Next For Nanotechnology

April 9, 2009

nanofuture whats next

Author:
J. Storrs Hall
Publisher:
Prometheus Books (2005)

Hall writes that nanotechnology “involves building machines whose parts are of molecular size, but more importantly, of atomic precision … more »….” He foresees nanotechnology progressing through five stages of development, stage one being our current ability to image objects at an atomic scale with a limited ability to manipulate them, and stage five being the ability of miniature robots to reproduce and learn from experience.

A fellow… read more

Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies — and What It Means to Be Human

April 9, 2009
Author:
Joel Garreau
Publisher:
Doubleday (2005)

Washington Post reporter Garreau takes readers on a cross-country trip into the future as he interviews scientists and other thinkers grappling with the implications of our newfound—and, to some, frightening—knowledge of the genome. Highlighting what he calls “the Curve”—the rate of exponential change in technology—Garreau (Edge City: Life on the New Frontier) breaks the central part of his book into four scenarios. In “Heaven,” genetic engineering will… read more

Liberation Biology: The Scientific and Moral Case for the Biotech Revolution

July 16, 2010

Liberation Biology: The Scientific and Moral Case for the Biotech Revolution

Author:
Ronald Bailey
Publisher:
Prometheus Books (2005)

Amazon | A positive, optimistic, and convincing case that the biotechnology revolution will improve our lives and the future of our children. The 21st century will undoubtedly witness unprecedented advances in understanding the mechanisms of the human body and in developing biotechnology. With the mapping of the human genome, the pace of discovery is now on the fast track. By the middle of the century we can expect that… read more

On Intelligence

July 14, 2010

On Intelligence

Author:
Jeff Hawkins, Sandra Blakeslee
Publisher:
St. Martin's Griffin (2005)

Amazon | Hawkins designed the technical innovations that make handheld computers like the Palm Pilot ubiquitous. But he also has a lifelong passion for the mysteries of the brain, and he’s convinced that artificial intelligence theorists are misguided in focusing on the limits of computational power rather than on the nature of human thought. He “pops the hood” of the neocortex and carefully articulates a theory of consciousness and… read more

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