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| Material Type: | Internet resource |
|---|---|
| Document Type: | Book, Internet Resource |
| All Authors / Contributors: |
Jaron Lanier |
| ISBN: | 9780307269645 0307269647 9781846143410 1846143411 9780307389978 0307389979 |
| OCLC Number: | 297147711 |
| Description: | 209 pages ; 22 cm |
| Contents: | What is a person? -- Missing persons -- An apocalypse of self-abdication -- The noosphere is just another name for everyone's inner troll -- What will money be? -- Digital peasant chic -- The city is built to music -- The lords of the clouds renounce free will in order to become infinitely lucky -- The prospects for humanistic cloud economics -- Three possible future directions -- The unbearable thinness of flatness -- Retropolis -- Digital creativity eludes flat places -- All hail the membrane -- Making the best of bits -- I am a contrarian loop -- One story of how semantics might have evolved -- Future humors -- Home at last (my love affair with Bachelardian neoteny). |
| Responsibility: | Jaron Lanier. |
Abstract:
Reviews
Publisher Synopsis
Fabulous - I couldn't put it down and shouted out Yes! Yes! on many pages . . . This is a landmark book that will have people talking and arguing for years into the future. * Lee Smolin * Lucid, powerful and persuasive . . . Necessary reading for anyone interested in how the Web and the software we use every day are reshaping culture and the marketplace * Michiko Kakutani, New York Times * A remarkable book punctuated by expansive ideas . . . For those who wish to read to think, and read to transform, You Are Not a Gadget is a book to begin the 2010s * Times Higher Education * A pioneer in the development of virtual reality and a Silicon Valley veteran, Mr. Lanier is a digital-world insider concerned with the effect that online collectivism and the current enshrinement of "the wisdom of the crowd" is having on artists, intellectual property rights and the larger social and cultural landscape. In taking on such issues, he's written an illuminating book that is as provocative as it is impassioned. -- Michiko Kakutani's Top 10 Books of the Year 2010 * New York Times * In the world of technologists, Jaron Lanier is that rare combination: a pioneer and a skeptic. A legendary computer scientist, he did crucial early work in the field of virtual reality (the phrase is his). But he now recoils at the way Web 2.0 and social media sell us short as human beings, both in our relationships and in our sense of who we are. In purposeful, reasoned steps, always informed by a profound understanding of how software really works, he lays out his vision of where it all went wrong and champions the power of the human brain in an age of ever smarter machines. -- Lev Grossman * Time Magazine Top 10 Non-Fiction Books of 2010 * Read more...
WorldCat User Reviews (1)
Questioning the coming digital utopia
Jarod Lanier makes up for a somewhat rambling, disjointed argumentative structure by peppering this book with startling insights and counter-intuitive statements on the nature of technological innovation. Lanier, credited as the founder of virtual reality technology, is as much a humanist as a techno-geek,...
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Jarod Lanier makes up for a somewhat rambling, disjointed argumentative structure by peppering this book with startling insights and counter-intuitive statements on the nature of technological innovation. Lanier, credited as the founder of virtual reality technology, is as much a humanist as a techno-geek, and he wants us to be cautious as we enter the brave new world of digital miracles. Personhood is a crucial concept for Lanier, and he makes it clear that computers can never be people.
Lanier is best when he explains how the process of technology proliferation can channel culture into particular patterns. A seemingly random choice at the point of invention can result in solidified structure and precedent that can be nearly impossible to overcome. I recommend particularly his discussion of digital music and the ways it has shaped our creation and hearing of music today.
For all its faults, Lanier's voice is one that is worth hearing. For a good pairing, I would suggest reading this book along with David Weinberger's "Too Big to Know." The latter extols the virtues of crowd wisdom and interconnectivity, while Lanier cautions us to remember the value of individual creativity and the mystery of consciousness.
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- artificial intelligence (by 1 person)
- cyberculture (by 1 person)
- duc--social issues (by 1 person)
- epistemology (by 1 person)
- information technology (by 1 person)
- ontology (by 1 person)
- personhood (by 1 person)
- philosophy (by 1 person)
- 1 items are tagged withartificial intelligence
- 1 items are tagged withcyberculture
- 1 items are tagged withduc--social issues
- 1 items are tagged withepistemology
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- 1 items are tagged withontology
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Related Subjects:(21)
- Information technology -- Social aspects.
- Technological innovations -- Social aspects.
- Technology -- Social aspects.
- COMPUTERS -- Internet -- General.
- COMPUTERS -- Social Aspects -- General.
- TECHONOLOGY & ENGINEERING -- Social Aspects.
- information technology.
- Innovations technologiques.
- Internet.
- Culture.
- Conséquences sociales.
- Web 2.0.
- Réseaux sociaux en ligne.
- Informationstechnik
- Virtuelle Realität
- Neue Medien
- Sozialpsychologie
- Kulturkritik
- Informationsteknik -- sociala aspekter.
- Informationstechnik.
- Sozialpsychologie.
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