New Books in Technology

The concept of transhumanism emerged in the middle of the 20th century, and has influenced discussions around AI, brain–computer interfaces, genetic technologies and life extension. Despite its enduring influence in the public imagination, a fully developed philosophy of transhumanism has not yet been presented.

In We Have Always Been Cyborgs: Digital Data, Gene Technologies, and an Ethics of Transhumanism (Bristol UP, 2023), leading philosopher Stefan Lorenz Sorgner explores the critical issues that link transhumanism with digitalization, gene technologies and ethics. He examines the history and meaning of transhumanism and asks bold questions about human perfection, cyborgs, genetically enhanced entities, and uploaded minds.

Offering insightful reflections on values, norms and utopia, this will be an important guide for readers interested in contemporary digital culture, gene ethics, and policy making.

Frances Sacks is a graduate of Wesleyan University where she studied in the Science and Society Program.

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The word "glitch" implies an incidental error, as easy to patch up as it is to identify. But what if racism, sexism, and ableism aren't just bugs in mostly functional machinery--what if they're coded into the system itself? In the vein of heavy hitters such as Safiya Umoja Noble, Cathy O'Neil, and Ruha Benjamin, Meredith Broussard demonstrates in More than a Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender, and Ability Bias in Tech (MIT Press, 2023) how neutrality in tech is a myth and why algorithms need to be held accountable.

Broussard, a data scientist and one of the few Black female researchers in artificial intelligence, masterfully synthesizes concepts from computer science and sociology. She explores a range of examples: from facial recognition technology trained only to recognize lighter skin tones, to mortgage-approval algorithms that encourage discriminatory lending, to the dangerous feedback loops that arise when medical diagnostic algorithms are trained on insufficiently diverse data. Even when such technologies are designed with good intentions, Broussard shows, fallible humans develop programs that can result in devastating consequences.

Broussard argues that the solution isn't to make omnipresent tech more inclusive, but to root out the algorithms that target certain demographics as "other" to begin with. With sweeping implications for fields ranging from jurisprudence to medicine, the ground-breaking insights of More Than a Glitch are essential reading for anyone invested in building a more equitable future.

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Around the world, liberal democracies are in crisis. Citizens have lost faith in their government; right-wing nationalist movements frame the political debate. At the same time, economic inequality is increasing dramatically; digital technologies have created a new class of super-rich entrepreneurs. Automation threatens to transform the free economy into a zero-sum game in which capital wins and labor loses. But is this digital dystopia inevitable?

In our final discussion before the election, George Zarkadakis, author of Cyber Republic, reflects on the long term technological challenges and opportunities facing democracy.

George Zarkadakis leads Future of Work at Willis Towers Watson in Great Britain, a global risk and human capital consulting firm. The author of In Our Own Image: The History and Future of Artificial Intelligence and other books, he has written extensively on science and technology for publications including Aeon and Wired.

Hosted by Sam Kelly; Mixed by Samantha Doyle; Soundtrack by Kristen Gallerneaux

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Prisons are not typically known for cutting-edge media technologies. Yet from photography in the nineteenth century to AI-enhanced tracking cameras today, there is a long history of prisons being used as a testing ground for technologies that are later adopted by the general public. If we recognize the prison as a central site for the development of media technologies, how might that change our understanding of both media systems and carceral systems? In Prison Media: Incarceration and the Infrastructures of Work and Technology (MIT Press, 2023), Anne Kaun and Fredrik Stiernstedt foreground the ways in which the prison is a model space for the control and transmission of information, a place where media is produced, and a medium in its own right.

Examining the relationship between media and prison architecture, as surveillance and communication technologies are literally built into the facilities, this study also considers the ways in which prisoners themselves often do hard labor as media workers—labor that contributes in direct and indirect ways to the latest technologies developed and sold by multinational corporations like Amazon. There is a fine line between ankle monitors and Fitbits, and Prison Media helps us make sense of today's carceral society.

Jen Hoyer is Technical Services and Electronic Resources Librarian at CUNY New York City College of Technology. Jen edits for Partnership Journal and organizes with the TPS Collective. She is co-author of What Primary Sources Teach: Lessons for Every Classroom and The Social Movement Archive.

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Ethics and civics have always mattered, but perhaps they matter now more than ever before. Recently, with the rise of online teaching and movements like #PlayApartTogether, games have become increasingly acknowledged as platforms for civic deliberation and value sharing. We the Gamers: How Games Teach Ethics and Civics (Oxford UP, 2021) explores these possibilities by examining how we connect, communicate, analyze, and discover when we play games. Combining research-based perspectives and current examples, this volume shows how games can be used in ethics, civics, and social studies education to inspire learning, critical thinking, and civic change.

We the Gamers introduces and explores various educational frameworks through a range of games and interactive experiences including board and card games, online games, virtual reality and augmented reality games, and digital games like Minecraft,Executive Command, Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, Fortnite, When Rivers Were Trails, Politicraft, Quandary, and Animal Crossing: New Horizons. The book systematically evaluates the types of skills, concepts, and knowledge needed for civic and ethical engagement, and details how games can foster these skills in classrooms, remote learning environments, and other educational settings. We the Gamers also explores the obstacles to learning with games and how to overcome those obstacles by encouraging equity and inclusion, care and compassion, and fairness and justice.

Featuring helpful tips and case studies, We the Gamers shows teachers the strengths and limitations of games in helping students connect with civics and ethics, and imagines how we might repair and remake our world through gaming, together.

Rudolf Inderst is a professor of Game Design with a focus on Digital Game Studies at the IU International University of Applied Science, editor of “Game Studies Watchlist”, a weekly messenger newsletter about Game Culture and curator of @gamestudies at tiktok.

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So-called extinct objects are those that were imagined but were never in use, or that existed but are now unused—superseded, unfashionable, or simply forgotten. Extinct: A Compendium of Obsolete Objects (Reaktion Books, 2021) gathers together an exceptional range of artists, curators, architects, critics, and academics, including Hal Foster, Barry Bergdoll, Deyan Sudjic, Tacita Dean, Emily Orr, Richard Wentworth, and many more. In eighty-five essays, contributors nominate “extinct” objects and address them in a series of short, vivid, sometimes personal accounts, speaking not only of obsolete technologies, but of other ways of thinking, making, and interacting with the world. Extinct is filled with curious, half-remembered objects, each one evoking a future that never came to pass. It is also a visual treat, full of interest and delight.

Barbara Penner is professor of architectural humanities at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London.

Adrian Forty is professor emeritus of architectural history at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London.

Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel.

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Final Fantasy VII altered the course of video game history when it was released in 1997 on Sony's PlayStation system. It converted the Japanese role-playing game into an international gaming standard with enhanced gameplay, spectacular cutscenes and a vast narrative involving an iconic cast. In the decades after its release, the Final Fantasy VII franchise has grown to encompass a number of video game sequels, prequels, a feature-length film, a novel and a multi-volume remake series. 

Jason C. Cash and Craig T. Olsen's The World of Final Fantasy VII: Essays on the Game and Its Legacy (McFarland, 2023), the first edited collection of essays devoted only to the world of Final Fantasy VII, blends scholarly rigor with fan passion in order to identify the elements that keep Final Fantasy VII current and exciting for players. Some essays specifically address the game's perennially relevant themes and scenarios, ranging from environmental consciousness to economic inequity and posthumanism. Others examine the mechanisms used to immerse the player or to improve the narrative. Finally, there are several essays devoted specifically to the game's legacy, from its influence on later games to its characters' many crossovers and cameos.

Rudolf Inderst is a professor of Game Design with a focus on Digital Game Studies at the IU International University of Applied Science, editor of “Game Studies Watchlist”, a weekly messenger newsletter about Game Culture, editor-in-chief at Suisse cultural journal Nahaufnahmen.ch and curator of @gamestudies at tiktok.

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How have platforms transforming the world of work? In Work and Alienation in the Platform Economy: Amazon and the Power of Organisation (Bristol UP, 2023), Sarrah Kassem, a Lecturer and Research Associate in the field of Political Economy at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Tübingen, uses a case study of Amazon to explore issues of alienation and resistance in contemporary working life. The book adapts and develops key Marxist inspired theories to chart the rise of the platforms, and Amazon’s role within this set of both digital and physical industries. Examining warehouses, MTurk, and the broader gig economy, the book offers strategies for resistance and solidarity as well as detailed analysis. It will be essential reading across the social sciences, as well as for anyone interested in work and labour today.

Dave O'Brien is Professor of Cultural and Creative Industries, at the University of Sheffield.

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Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity (PublicAffairs, 2023) is a groundbreaking work by bestselling authors Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson, in which they challenge conventional wisdom about the role of technology in driving prosperity. The authors argue that technology is not a neutral force working in the public interest but is shaped by the interests and beliefs of the powerful. Those who control technology are the ones who benefit from it, leaving the rest of society with the illusion of progress.

The authors provide a historical account of how technological choices have shaped the course of history, from the appropriation of the economic surplus of the Middle Ages by an ecclesiastical elite to the making of vast fortunes from digital technologies today, while millions of people are pushed towards poverty. The authors emphasize that technological progress can either serve the narrow interests of an elite or become the foundation for widespread prosperity.

The book presents a manifesto for building a better society by using the tremendous digital advances of the last half century to create useful and empowering tools, rather than marginalizing most people through automated work and political passivity. The authors argue that to achieve the true potential of innovation, we need to ensure that technology is creating new jobs and opportunities for everyone. The book offers a vision to reimagine and reshape the path of technology, ensuring that it leads to true shared prosperity.

Power and Progress offers a fresh perspective on how technology shapes our lives and highlights the need for a more democratic approach to technological progress. The book provides a compelling argument that the path of technology is not predetermined but can be brought under control to ensure that it benefits everyone, not just a few powerful individuals or corporations. The authors provide an insightful analysis of the power dynamics that underlie technological progress, and their manifesto for a better society is a call to action for policymakers, business leaders, and individuals alike.

Javier Mejia is an economist at Stanford University who specializes in the intersection of social networks and economic history. His research interests also include entrepreneurship and political economy, with a particular focus on Latin America and the Middle East. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Los Andes University. Mejia has previously been a Postdoctoral Associate and Lecturer at New York University-Abu Dhabi and a Visiting Scholar at the University of Bordeaux. He is also a frequent contributor to various news outlets, currently serving as an op-ed columnist for Forbes Magazine.

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An interview with Dariusz Jemielniak and Aleksandra Przegalinska about Collaborative Society (The MIT Press Essential Knowledge series) and how networked technology enables the emergence of a new collaborative society.

Humans are hard-wired for collaboration, and new technologies of communication act as a super-amplifier of our natural collaborative mindset. This volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series examines the emergence of a new kind of social collaboration enabled by networked technologies. This new collaborative society might be characterized as a series of services and startups that enable peer-to-peer exchanges and interactions though technology. Some believe that the economic aspects of the new collaboration have the potential to make society more equitable; others see collaborative communities based on sharing as a cover for social injustice and user exploitation.

The book covers the "sharing economy," and the hijacking of the term by corporations; different models of peer production, and motivations to participate; collaborative media production and consumption, the definitions of "amateur" and "professional," and the power of memes; hactivism and social movements, including Anonymous and anti-ACTA protest; collaborative knowledge creation, including citizen science; collaborative self-tracking; and internet-mediated social relations, as seen in the use of Instagram, Snapchat, and Tinder. Finally, the book considers the future of these collaborative tendencies and the disruptions caused by fake news, bots, and other challenges.

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