Summer books of 2021: Technology
This is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyber Weapons Arms Race
by Nicole Perlroth, Bloomsbury £14.99
Governments, businesses and individuals around the world are rapidly waking up to the horrors of being hacked. In this pacily written book by a New York Times reporter, Nicole Perlroth explores the seamy underworld of the internet, where hackers break into computer networks and sell their secrets to the highest bidder.
A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence
by Jeff Hawkins, Basic Books $30
The three-pound mass of cells floating around in our heads is one of the most sophisticated and mysterious phenomena in the universe. For more than 20 years, Jeff Hawkins has been trying to unravel how our brains work. A gripping read on the nature of human, machine and extraterrestrial intelligence.
Atlas of AI
by Kate Crawford, Yale University Press £20
The debate about artificial intelligence tends to be dominated by tech geeks, enthusing about the potential for the general-purpose technology. Kate Crawford forces us to think again. Mapping out the political, economic, environmental and societal contours of the technology, this senior researcher at Microsoft smartly reframes the technological debate: AI is a registry of power.
Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society
by Ronald J Deibert, September Publishing £9.99
Once viewed as a liberating and democratising technology, the internet is now more widely viewed as a playground for dystopianism, plagued by cyber crime, corporate and government surveillance and political polarisation. In a series of spirited lectures, Ronald J Deibert explains how civil society can fight back and reclaim the internet’s original promise.
Tell us what you think
What are your favourites from this list? And what books have we missed? Tell us in the comments below
The Startup Wife
by Tahmima Anam, Canongate Books £14.99
This whip-sharp novel about Asha Ray, a Bangladeshi-American scientist and entrepreneur, is both an entertaining read and a searing examination of the exhilaration, absurdities and casual sexism of the US start-up scene. Can the social networking platform WAI (We are Infinite) transform the world for the better? Truly a novel of our times.
The New Breed: How to Think About Robots
by Kate Darling, Allen Lane £20
A robotics expert from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology makes a compelling case that humans should regard robots in a similar way to how we treat animals: for work, weapons and companionship. Rather than using robots to replace humans, we should figure out how we can best work together.
We Are Bellingcat: An Intelligence Agency for the People
by Eliot Higgins, Bloomsbury £20
The internet has made open-source intelligence gathering possible — and Eliot Higgins of Bellingcat is the world’s foremost practitioner. His organisation’s work helped to unmask the Russian spies responsible for the Salisbury poisoning in 2018 and has documented chemical weapons attacks in Syria — among many other investigations. This is a fascinating personal and political detective story.
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