Overview

As we approach a great turning point in history when technology is poised to redefine what it means to be human, The Fourth Age offers fascinating insight into AI, robotics, and their extraordinary implications for our species. In The Fourth Age, Byron Reese makes the case that technology has reshaped humanity just three times in history: 100,000 years ago, we harnessed fire, which led to language.10,000 years ago, we developed agriculture, which led to cities and warfare.5,000 years ago, we invented the wheel and writing, which lead to the nation state.We are now on the doorstep of a fourth change brought about by two technologies: AI and robotics. The Fourth Age provides extraordinary background information on how we got to this point, and how-rather than what-we should think about the topics we'll soon all be facing: machine consciousness, automation, employment, creative computers, radical life extension, artificial life, AI ethics, the future of warfare, superintelligence, and the implications of extreme prosperity. By asking questions like Are you a machine? and Could a computer feel anything?, Reese leads you through a discussion along the cutting edge in robotics and AI, and, provides a framework by which we can all understand, discuss, and act on the issues of the Fourth Age, and how they'll transform humanity.

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9781508264347

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Byron Reese is the CEO and publisher of the technology research company Gigaom and the founder of several hightech companies. The websites he has launched-which cover the intersection of technology, business, science, and history-have together received more than a billion visitors. He is the author of Infinite Progress: How the Internet and Technology Will End Ignorance, Disease, Poverty, Hunger, and War. He lives in Austin, Texas. Danny Campbell is an Earphones Award-winning narrator and an actor who has appeared in CBS' The Guardian, the films A Pool, a Fool, and a Duel and Greater Than Gravity, and in over twenty-five commercials. He is a company member of The Independent Shakespeare Company in Los Angeles, has appeared in numerous commercials, and is an adjunct faculty member at Santa Monica College.

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