As you read this, you may be a few days away from starting your vacation. Apart from finding other venues, it is also used to resume those readings that are stopped throughout the year, often due to lack of time. Summer is always more time to enjoy a good novel or catch up on deeper topics. For example, in technology.
If you are interested in staying up-to-date with the latest technological developments and want to know more about them, you will surely find out Keep at least one book in your suitcase and learn about technology. Like these five topics, it brings you up-to-date on important topics such as privacy, technology’s role in mitigating climate change, online advertising and our attention-seeking or automation and analytics, and the effects of data on inequality. .
Attention Traders – Tim Wu
Although he is a few years old, This topic by Tim WuA little longer, it covers the history of advertising from the birth of the first newspapers to the advent and The proliferation of online advertising and its means of capturing our attention. In countries like the US, the advertising industry, even in primary schools, can have a decisive impact on our lives. Especially at a time when in many countries practically everyone over the age of 13 or 14 carries a screen with them at all times.
Tim Wu, an American expert in media and technology who was a law professor at Columbia University and an adviser to Joe Biden’s cabinet until this year, explains in the pages of this topic how technology companies are fighting to keep our attention. As many hours as possible to get as much money as possible from each user.
Earlier they did it in newspapers and now in social networks. Because while companies have more opportunities to send us their ads and messages, the process of seeing them in as many places as possible began before the advent of the Internet.
The Automation of Inequality – Virginia Eubanks
It’s a fact that technology affects equality in economic matters, and it’s not for the better. This is reflected in Eubanks This investigation what Examines current discrimination based on dataBut also about how Technological advancements cause backlash in some communities and societies For civil rights.
It cannot be denied that the advent of technology has changed decision making. In all kinds of sectors, such as finance and services and especially critical areas such as employment and health, new automated systems base their decisions on data that tends to penalize the most vulnerable workers. In the U.S., the country where Eubanks conducted her investigation, they control everything from high-police neighborhoods where people are being investigated for fraud or receiving food aid.
The impact on data mining, algorithms, and predictive risk models on the least-willed population in the U.S. is relevantly unknown because of technological advances in digital surveillance and automation. Decision making, hiding what is happening to other social strata of the country. This book describes the extent to which technological advancements can control people’s lives and provide solutions to their problems.
Against the Future – Marta Peirano
The previous book faced the negative effects of technology, and was more optimistic This title by PiranoWho is watching? Future technology will help save us from environmental disaster. Man is the most vulnerable species on the planet in terms of its security, and current technology cannot help humans manage the crisis posed by climate change.
There are other solutions, yes, that can help us stop it. Technology, as currently proposed, can help us manage a population already overwhelmed by the effects of global warming.
However, in the future, technology may play a more effective role in helping people in their strategies and actions to deal with the effects of global warming and other threats to society. It sounds like a very apocalyptic book, but it’s actually a text that gives technology a more positive role than it seems.
The Myth of Artificial Intelligence: Why Machines Can’t Think Like Us – Eric J. Larson
Around the same time ChatGPT came into our lives, a sense of emptiness about what artificial intelligence could do, in this case, our jobs, gripped much of society. Not a few are beginning to warn that AI is going to replace many humans in their jobs. Not precisely on assembly lines, but considered at levels accessible only to men with high levels of training and creativity. But this book comes to put an end to these beliefs and show the reality of artificial intelligence.
Larson, researcher and scientist, Explain In his book What is Artificial Intelligence?Examining his current position, he notes that the very It is impossible to do what some experts say. In fact, according to Larsen, we’re a long way from AI being as intelligent as humans. She also points out that those who are most curious about her are guilty of these fears because, in her opinion, they are wrong to put her on the level of human intelligence.
Larson notes that AI doesn’t work like humans. Instead of making guesses based on experience, information and context, AI processes data sets, often large ones, to predict what will happen next. It uses inductive reasoning to provide results, while humans rely on intuition-based reasoning called deductive reasoning. That’s why it can’t be leveled.
This is one of the keys the book gives to show that machines are not capable of thinking like people, and will not be in the short or medium term. So, as they say, replacing them in most jobs is too complicated. Above all, in those related to creativity.
Privacy is Power: Data, Surveillance and Freedom in the Digital Age – Carissa Veliz
Our personal data is held by numerous government, corporations and technology companies. More than we think. Both companies and governments monitor everything we do online, collecting information they can: location, search results, websites we visit, services we use, who we talk to and interact with, what we buy, and even health issues. And the treatments we use for them.
They analyze everything to make decisions and know what we are going to do in the future or at a particular moment. And what they can offer us at a particular moment, we need it to buy. But they have everything they need to influence all kinds of decisions we make. It can even affect what we think about certain topics.
All of these do We have little privacy. Apart from that, it also leads to companies and institutions gaining more power over us. Carissa Veliz explains in his book How it happened, its importance and steps we can take to prevent it.
