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The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity Audiobook
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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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“Reese frames the deepest questions of our time in clear language that invites readers to make their own choices. Using 100,000 years of human history as his guide, he explores the issues around artificial general intelligence, robots, consciousness, automation, the end of work, abundance, and immortality. As he does so, Reese reveals himself to be an optimist and urges us to use technology to build a better world.”
— Bob Metcalfe, Ethernet inventor, 3Com founder, and professor at the University of Texas, Austin
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“Timely, highly informative, and certainly optimistic.”
— Booklist -
“Reese offers the reader something much more valuable than what to think about Artificial Intelligence and robotics—he focuses on how to think about these technologies and the ways in which they will change the world forever. If you only read just one book about the AI revolution, make it this one.”
— John Mackey, cofounder and CEO of Whole Foods Market
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About Byron Reese
Byron Reese owns and publishes GigaOm, the most repsected tech media site in the world, with over one million monthly technology and business readers. He holds a number of patents, including patents on crowdsourcing and pychographics, has founded several tech startups, and headed R&D at the multibillion-dollar company eHow, which receives more than 150 million monthly visitors. He is the author of The Fourth Age and Infinite Progress. Scott Hoffman is one of the founding partners of Folio Literary Management. A former Washington lobbyist, he has an MBA in finance from New York University.
About Danny Campbell
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 and is an adjunct faculty member at Santa Monica College.