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Download Download Available online at https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/nexj Visit our blog at newexplorations.net Vol 1 № 1 (Spring 2020) The 21st Century Has Arrived: Three Short Reviews William Kuhns Screenwriter, playwright, novelist and author of 16 books ABSTRACT Three short reviews are made of the following books: Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, by Yuval Noah Harari (2016) A.I.: Rise of the Lightspeed Learners, by Charles Jennings (2018) The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, by Shoshana Zuboff (2019) William Kuhns [email protected] 2 New Explorations: Studies in Culture & Communication In our young century’s first two decades, we’ve seen the explosive rise of social media, Brexit, Trump, and a global pandemic. What should we brace ourselves for next? Apart from B.W. Powe’s consummate take on social media, The Charge in the Global Membrane, which I review elsewhere in this issue, here are some quick impressions of the other three best books I’ve read, bearing on that theme. - WK Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, by Yuval Noah Harari. (2016) Harari, the Israeli historian and author of the astute prehistory and history of humanity, Sapiens, has turns his ever-alert, wide-spectrum attention to today’s major currents and their slipstreams: the dominant technological forcefields that will increasingly shape our society and our minds in the coming decades. Harari identifies three important paths we are traveling: first, replicating our intelligence – potentially as an overarching progeny – outside human skulls; second, reformulating the foundations of nature by taking control of its most elementary building blocks; and third, pursuing our boldest dreams as the self-made gods of all creation, endowing ourselves with supra-natural abilities, including, perhaps, some simulacrum of eternal life. Great promises, yes. But the implications of following these p[athways – for the growing imbalance of wealth and resources, for political instability and the freighted futures of democracy and the planet – are not so promising. His treatment is truly jaw-dropping. Harari never flinches. He followed this book with a sort-of sequel, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century (2017), another stunning guide into a world that’s fast becoming our world, one which grows ever more difficult to distinguish from science fiction. A.I.: Rise of the Lightspeed Learners, by Charles JenninGs (2018) What are we to make of an intelligence that can master the game of Go by playing the game with itself, hundreds of thousands of times – guided by no algorithm, only by its own mysteriously private form of self-training, then handily defeat the world’s grandmaster of the game? And pulling off such consummate learning, in one morning? The 21st Century Has Arrived: Three Reviews Welcome to the age of “lightspeed learners,” artificial intelligence sytems that often outperform the hardiest expectations of their designers. Jennings, a serial entrepreneur who has developed companies around such systems, takes us on a whirlwind tour of the latest development. Mary Shelley, are you paying attention? The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, by Shoshana Zuboff (2019) “Don’t be evil.” That was once a mantra of the executives at Google. But then, to better exploit and monetize their potential, those executives reconsidered. Zuboff lays out in electrifying detail, what has changed, and what Google has changed into: a driver of intimate surveillance attention to each us, with a growing, AI-abetted ability to limn our artificial doppelgangers, who know our choices better than we do ourselves. While Google may be the pioneer of this sea-change in Big Brother technologies, not far behind is Facebook, which has indulged in surveillance miscreances known and unknown – the most notorious being Cambridge Analytica, which was perhaps more decisive in electing Donald Trump than the hacking of Democratic files by a corps of accomplished Russian techies. The point Zuboff makes is a big one. Since the days of Adam Smith, we have defined capitalism around labor and markets. Google, Facebook, and their kin have translated the data streams of our online behavior into the hottest commodity of the digital universe. The forces of this new capitalism are driving not only the extrinction of privacy but unprecedented and subtle control over human lives, such as addicting us to the very tools designed to enslave us. To call this book alarming is a massive understatement. Orwell would have roused all of London from their sleep with his primal scream. .
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