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Self-Improvement connects the dots between innovations in print technology, the development of the literary genre of the 'confession,' and the way these practices are being currently amplified by social media platforms. Coeckelbergh's ability to identify what is truly interesting and to draw out the important connections between these different (and often times seemingly incompatible) materials is in full force here. Engaging, easy to follow, and full of the kinds of insights that make reading a text like this so satisfying. -- David J. Gunkel, author of <i>Gaming the System: Deconstructing Video Games, Games Studies, and Virtual Worlds</i>

In Self-Improvement, Mark Coeckelbergh explains why technology cannot cure what ails our soul. Artificial intelligence will not make us better human beings. An oppressive social environment is at the root of the rage for self-improvement. We need to work not on ourselves but on our society. Technology can help us improve it if we join together to make sensible changes. Self-Improvement is the guide we need to escape from the technologized self. -- Andrew Feenberg, author of <i>Technosystem: The Social Life of Reason</i> Coeckelbergh's diagnoses of the extensive historical and contemporary sources of a toxic culture of 'improving ourselves to death,' specifically as relentlessly driven by contemporary AI and surveillance capitalism, ground his prescriptions for alternative understandings of ourselves and of possible good lives as interwoven both with our technologies and the larger environment. The upshot is a book of exceptional insight and urgently needed wisdom. -- Charles Ess, author of <i>Digital Media Ethics</i> Self-Improvement connects the dots between innovations in print technology, the development of the literary genre of the 'confession,' and the way these practices are being currently amplified by social media platforms. Coeckelbergh's ability to identify what is truly interesting and to draw out the important connections between these different (and often times seemingly incompatible) materials is in full force here. Engaging, easy to follow, and full of the kinds of insights that make reading a text like this so satisfying. -- David J. Gunkel, author of <i>Gaming the System: Deconstructing Video Games, Games Studies, and Virtual Worlds</i>

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Mark Coeckelbergh is professor of philosophy of media and technology at the University of Vienna. His many books include AI Ethics (2020) and Introduction to Philosophy of Technology (2019).

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