The cybernetic society How humans and machines will shape the future together
Book - 2025
In The Cybernetic Society, technologist Amir Husain argues that AI hasn't simply encroached on everything we do. It has become part of us, and we, it. Humans and intelligent machines, he argues, are enmeshed in a symbiotic hybrid that he calls a "cybernetic society." Husain describes a present and future where AI isn't a tool of humans but our equal partner, one where they can realize their own visions of the world. There is great potential and danger: Saudi Arabia's Neom--a "cognitive city" being built in inhospitable desert--shows how this symbiosis can make life possible where otherwise, it is not. But the profusion of intelligent military drones is making mass destruction possible where otherwise, it i...s not. As engrossing as it is urgent, The Cybernetic Society offers a new understanding of this revolutionary fusion of machine and mankind, and its profound implications for all our futures. The path ahead is challenging. But Husain shows why we can live harmoniously with our creations.
- Subjects
- Published
-
New York, NY :
Basic Books
2025.
- Language
- English
- Main Author
- Edition
- First edition
- Physical Description
- 262 pages ; 25 cm
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 235-248) and index.
- ISBN
- 9781541605718
- Introduction Code, Consciousness, and Control
- Chapter 1. The Origins of Cybernetics
- Chapter 2. Neom and the World of the Future
- Chapter 3. Companies as Cybernetic Organisms
- Chapter 4. A World of Neoms
- Chapter 5. Human Augmentation
- Chapter 6. Cybernetic Conflict: Hyperwar
- Chapter 7. Cliodynamics and Cybernetics
- Chapter 8. We are Already Opted in
- Chapter 9. The Technologies of Freedom
- Chapter 10. Cybernetic Synthesis
- Acknowledgments
- Further Reading and References
- Index
Review by Kirkus Book Review