"you are not expected to understand this"

Leading technologists, historians, and journalists reveal the stories behind the computer coding that touches all aspects of life—for better or worseFew of us give much thought to computer code or how it comes to be. The very word “code” makes it sound immutable or even inevitable. “You Are Not E...

Against civilization

The primer of anarcho-primitivism.

Ai and political freedom

A leading tech insider reveals how AI may threaten our democratic institutions and enable autocracy—and how to guard against thisAmerican democracy is under pressure, as institutions that we once thought stable suddenly seem precarious. At the same time, artificial intelligence has taken over muc...

Ai needs you

A humanist manifesto for the age of AIArtificial intelligence may be the most transformative technology of our time. As AI’s power grows, so does the need to figure out what—and who—this technology is really for. AI Needs You argues that it is critical for society to take the lead in answering th...

Ai snake oil

From two of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in AI, what you need to know about AI—and how to defend yourself against bogus AI claims and productsConfused about AI and worried about what it means for your future and the future of the world? You’re not alone. AI is everywhere—and few things are ...

Ai – limits and prospects of artificial intelligence

This book highlights the societal and attending economic hopes and fears, utopias and dystopias that are associated with the current and future development of artificial intelligence.

Artificially yours

A human perspective on the nature of friendship in the age of artificial intelligenceIs friendship with a chatbot as good as friendship with an actual person? Is there something about human friendships that eludes simulation? If so, what? And how much will the answers to questions like these chan...

Being brains

Sketches the history of the belief that human beings are essentially their brains, and documents and critically discusses its contemporary forms across a range of contexts, including mental health, the human sciences, and literature and film.

Climate protection, resource efficiency, and sustainable engineering

This book introduces explores the potential of light weight engineering in the areas of climate protection, resource efficiency, and sustainable mobility.

Code work

How Mexican and Latinx hackers apply concepts from coding to their lived experiencesIn Code Work, Héctor Beltrán examines Mexican and Latinx coders’ personal strategies of self-making as they navigate a transnational economy of tech work. Beltrán shows how these hackers apply concepts from the co...

Collecting seeds, assembling worlds

If crop diversity loss is a product of modern agriculture, is freezing seed diversity to adapt modern agriculture to changing conditions the answer?

Communicative ai in (inter-)action

This book brings together contributions from a growing community of researchers who are committed to exploring communicative AI »in (inter-)action« by using and adapting qualitative (and mostly ethnographic) methods.

Cursed objects

Now that we've sold ourselves to ourselves, shuffling letters and sounds around to hide the pain, how do we represent the uncanny valley in which we've set up shop? In Cursed Objects, Jason Christie recoils in horror at the thoroughness of his self, then begins to write toward a new understanding...

Cyborg mind

Data driven

A behind-the-scenes look at how digital surveillance is affecting the trucking way of lifeLong-haul truckers are the backbone of the American economy, transporting goods under grueling conditions and immense economic pressure. Truckers have long valued the day-to-day independence of their work, s...

Deus in machina

This interdisciplinary volume explores how two domains of human experience and action–religion and technology–are implicated in one another. Combining rich historical and ethnographic detail with extended theoretical reflection, Deus in Machina challenges longstanding assumptions about religion ...

Digital culture & society (dcs)

This issue discusses theoretical and artistic investigations of citizen engagement, digital citizenship, and grassroots information politics. Articles reflect on the role of the digital citizen.

Digital culture & society (dcs)

This issue of Digital Culture & Society addresses the ideological and political aspects of metadata practices within image collections from an interdisciplinary perspective. The overall aim is to consider the implications, tensions, and challenges involved in the creation of metadata in terms...

Digital culture & society (dcs)

This double issue addresses the complex thematic field of the dialectics of play and labor. It takes a closer look at the problem of play and work from two overlapping perspectives: laborious play and playful work.

Digital culture & society (dcs)

Digital Culture & Society is a refereed, international journal, fostering discussion about the ways in which digital technologies, platforms and applications reconfigure daily lives and practices. It offers a forum for inquiries into digital media theory, methodologies, and socio-technologica...

Digital culture & society (dcs)

This double issue addresses the complex thematic field of play and labor dialectics. The articles take a closer look at the problem of play and work from two overlapping perspectives: laborious play and playful work.

Digital culture & society (dcs)

»Digital Culture & Society« is a refereed, international journal, fostering discussion about the ways in which digital technologies, platforms and applications reconfigure daily lives and practices. It offers a forum for critical analysis and inquiries into digital media theory and provides a...

Digital government

Few developments have had broader consequences for the public sector than the introduction of the Internet and digital technology. In this book, Darrell West discusses how new technology is altering governmental performance, the political process, and democracy itself by improving government resp...

Durable economies

This book argues for a deeper engagement with durability, which is essential for understanding of how economies work; and for envisaging alternative economies built on principles of environmental stewardship and social justice.

Electric sounds

Electric Sounds brings to vivid life an era when innovations in the production, recording, and transmission of sound revolutionized a number of different media, especially the radio, the phonograph, and the cinema. The 1920s and 1930s marked some of the most important developments in the history ...

Emotional drivers of innovation

The contributors to this book argue that emotions influence innovations as they are inherent in initial ideas, expectations and habitual evaluation criteria that impact the development process.

Envisaging dataist modernity

Who gets to imagine datafied visions of the future city (region) and why is it important to look at universities as powerful urban stakeholders?

Equal under the algorithm

Seeing fairness through a computational lensMore and more of the decisions that shape our lives are driven by algorithms: what healthcare we receive, what loans we are offered, whom we date, the news we read, the schools we attend, and the jobs we get. These systems do not merely assist human dec...

Global "body shopping"

How can America's information technology (IT) industry predict serious labor shortages while at the same time laying off tens of thousands of employees annually? The answer is the industry's flexible labor management system--a flexibility widely regarded as the modus operandi of global capitalism...

Global population

Concern about the size of the world's population did not begin with the "population bomb" in 1968. It arose in the aftermath of World War I and was understood as an issue with far-reaching ecological, agricultural, economic, and geopolitical consequences. The world population problem concerned th...

Governing global emotions

What goes wrong when emotions get turned into digital data to be measured, monitored and managedData from facial emotion recognition, brain-computer interfaces, virtual reality, global emotion surveys and sentiment analysis offer an extraordinary new terrain for scientific exploration. Emotion se...

Hacking diversity

A firsthand look at efforts to improve diversity in software and hackerspace communitiesHacking, as a mode of technical and cultural production, is commonly celebrated for its extraordinary freedoms of creation and circulation. Yet surprisingly few women participate in it: rates of involvement by...

Hot molecules, cold electrons

An entertaining mathematical exploration of the heat equation and its role in the triumphant development of the trans-Atlantic telegraph cableHeat, like gravity, shapes nearly every aspect of our world and universe, from how milk dissolves in coffee to how molten planets cool. The heat equation, ...

Human 2.0

Human 2.0: Reimagining HR in the Age of Transhumanism explores the transformative effects of transhumanist technologies, such as AI, biotechnology, and neuro-enhancements, on the field of human resources (HR).

Indigenous empowerment through human-machine interactions

Indigenous Empowerment through Human-Machine Interactions serves as a bridge between academia, policymaking, and Indigenous leadership, offering a practical guide for policymakers and professionals seeking to engage with Indigenous communities in meaningful ways.

Internet health report 2019

This annual report is a call to action to recognize the things that are having an impact on the internet today and to embrace the notion that we can change how we make money, govern societies, and interact with one another online.

Island in the net

An exploration of Cuba’s emerging digital culture and Cubans’ creation of grassroots networks, digital black markets, and online spaces for public debateUntil just a few years ago, Cuba was one of the least-connected countries in the world. But as digital technology has become increasingly availa...

Kompositionen für hörbaren raum / compositions for audible space

The integration of audible space is a central aspect of electroacoustic music. Ever since the earliest analogue days of electroacoustic music, pioneers of the genre – including Pierre Schaeffer, Iannis Xenakis, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Luigi Nono – used special devices and methods for their com...

Little rice

Can the world’s biggest economy actually innovate? Clay Shirky explores China at a crossroads. Smartphones have to be made someplace, and that place is China. In just five years, a company named Xiaomi (which means “little rice” in Mandarin) has grown into the most valuable startup ever, becomin...

Living in information

Websites and apps are places where critical parts of our lives happen. We shop, bank, learn, gossip, and select our leaders there. But many of these places weren’t intended to support these activities. Instead, they're designed to capture your attention and sell it to the highest bidder. Living i...

Making a good life

Making a Good Life takes a timely look at the ideas and values that inform how people think about reproduction and assisted reproductive technologies. In an era of heightened scrutiny about parenting and reproduction, fears about environmental degradation, and the rise of the biotechnology indust...

More than machines?

We know that robots are just machines. Why then do we often talk about them as if they were alive? Laura Voss explores this phenomenon from science-fiction to robotics R&D, from science communication to media discourse, and from the theoretical perspectives of STS to the cognitive sciences.

Network publicy governance

The information age has brought about a growing conflict between proponents of a data-driven society on the one side and demands for protection of individual freedom, autonomy, and dignity by means of privacy on the other. The causes of this conflict are rooted in the modern Western opposition of...

On the screen

Ariel Rogers rethinks the history of moving images by exploring how experiments with screen technologies in and around the 1930s changed the way films were produced, exhibited, and experienced. She challenges conventional narratives about the novelty of the twenty-first-century multiscreen enviro...

Organizing networks

What are organizations? Where do they come from? How are they transformed and adapted to new situations? In the digital age and in the global network society, traditional theories of the organization can no longer answer these questions. Based on actor-network theory, this book explains organizat...

Playing dystopia

Gerald Farca explores the genre of dystopian video games and the player’s aesthetic response to their nightmarish gameworlds. Players, he argues, will gradually come to see similarities between the virtual dystopia and their own offline environment, thus learning to stay wary of social and politi...

Pragmatic engineering and lifestyle

Pragmatic Engineering and Lifestyle draws together international experts from engineering and architecture to disclose the latest insights into forging viable means to sustain tomorrow’s needs.