Audiobook13 hours
Rise of the Machines: A Cybernetic History
Written by Thomas Rid
Narrated by Robertson Dean
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
()
About this audiobook
As lives offline and online merge, it's easy to forget how we got here.#160;Rise of the Machines#160;reclaims the story of cybernetics, a control theory of man and machine. Thomas Rid delivers a portrait of our technology enraptured era. Springing from mathematician Norbert Wiener amid the devastation of World War II, the cybernetic vision underpinned a host of myths about the future of machines. This vision radically transformed the postwar world, ushering in sweeping cultural change. Cybernetics triggered cults, the#160;Whole Earth Catalog, and feminist manifestos, just as it fueled martial gizmos and the air force's foray into virtual space. As Rid shows, cybernetics proved a powerful tool for two competing factions-those who sought to make a better world and those who sought to control the one at hand. In the Bay Area, techno-libertarians embraced networked machines as the portal to a new electronic frontier. In Washington, DC, cyberspace provided the perfect theater for dominance and war. That ldquo;first cyberwarrdquo; went on for years-and indeed has never stopped. In our cybernetic future, the line between utopia and dystopia continues to be disturbingly thin.
Author
Thomas Rid
Thomas Rid is a professor at Johns Hopkins University. He testified on disinformation in front of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He is also the author of Rise of the Machines: A Cybernetic History.
Related to Rise of the Machines
Related audiobooks
Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Thinking Machines: The Quest for Artificial Intelligence--and Where It's Taking Us Next Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Technological Singularity Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Machines of Loving Grace: The Quest for Common Ground Between Humans and Robots Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Internet Is Not What You Think It Is: A History, a Philosophy, a Warning Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Virtually Human: The Promise—and the Peril—of Digital Immortality Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Humans Need Not Apply: A Guide to Wealth and Work in the Age of Artificial Intelligence Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Augmented: Life in The Smart Lane Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Hacker and the State: Cyber Attacks and the New Normal of Geopolitics Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Computing: A Concise History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Secret Life: Three True Stories of the Digital Age Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Dark Net: Inside the Digital Underworld Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Vulnerable System: The History of Information Security in the Computer Age Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Artificial Intelligence: From Medieval Robots to Neural Networks Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Future Histories: What Ada Lovelace, Tom Paine, and the Paris Commune Can Teach Us About Digital Technology Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Cyber War: The Next Threat to National Security and What to Do About It Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Forged in War: How a Century of War Created Today's Information Society Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Radical Abundance: How a Revolution in Nanotechnology Will Change Civilization Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Digital Barbarism Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Second Age of Computer Science: From Algol Genes to Neural Nets Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The New Fire: War, Peace, and Democracy in the Age of AI Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5AI Narratives: A History of Imaginative Thinking about Intelligent Machines Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Chip: How Two Americans Invented the Microchip and Launched a Revolution Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Computers For You
How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Elon Musk Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Once Upon an Algorithm: How Stories Explain Computing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dark Net: Inside the Digital Underworld Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Hacker's Mind: How the Powerful Bend Society's Rules, and How to Bend them Back Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Artificial Intelligence For Dummies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bored and Brilliant: How Spacing Out Can Unlock Your Most Productive and Creative Self Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5T-Minus AI: Humanity's Countdown to Artificial Intelligence and the New Pursuit of Global Power Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Computational Thinking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Artificial Intelligence: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Sentient Machine: The Coming Age of Artificial Intelligence Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cybersecurity For Dummies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Social Engineering: The Science of Human Hacking 2nd Edition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Quantum Computing: The Transformative Technology of the Qubit Revolution Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How to Work a Room: The Ultimate Guide to Savvy Socializing In Person and Online Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Computer Science Beginners Crash Course: Coding Data, Python, Algorithms & Hacking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Rise of the Machines
Rating: 3.522727254545455 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
22 ratings1 review
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This wasn't quite what I expected. Rather than a general overview, it focuses on three areas— military interests, stones fascinated by the possibilities of virtual reality trips, and anarchists looking to retain their anonymity—and how each of these cultural groups viewed cybernetics. My take away from it is that the promise of cybernetics seems to be continually undermined by those who wish to abuse it. So it goes.