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The Machine Age
An Idea, a History, a Warning
Brief Description
A sweeping history of and meditation on humanity's relationship with machines, showing how we got here and what happens next. We live in a world made by machines; their development set its beat. The Machine Age tells the story of our relationship with machines from humanity's...
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Description
A sweeping history of and meditation on humanity's relationship with machines, showing how we got here and what happens next.
We live in a world made by machines; their development set its beat. The Machine Age tells the story of our relationship with machines from humanity's first tools down to the present and into the future. It charts the causes and courses of technological progress across epochs, revealing its impedances and accelerants, its interactions with capital, and its ascent to the first principle of the modern era.
Tracing the promise of machines to liberate us from work and want and the accompanying threat of redundancy and subjection from ancient times to our own, Robert Skidelsky demonstrates how our creations not only reflect our ideas and ideals but also remake them. Taking in the peaks of philosophy and triumphs of science, the foundation of economics, and speculations of fiction, he undertakes a fascinating intellectual journey through the evolution of our understanding of technology, and what this means for our lives and politics.
It is an account that offers an escape from many assumptions about the potential and perils of machine learning and the technologies shaping the world nowβand from the risks they pose to the future.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9780141982519
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 07 November 2024
Country: United Kingdom
Imprint: Penguin Books Ltd
Audience: General / adult, Tertiary education, Professional and scholarly
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 20.0mm
Width: 130.0mm
Height: 198.0mm
Weight: 281g
Pages: 384
About the Author
Robert Skidelsky is Emeritus Professor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick. His three volume biography of John Maynard Keynes (1983, 1992, 2000) received numerous prizes, including the Lionel Gelber Prize for International Relations and the Council on Foreign Relations Prize for International Relations. He was made a life peer in 1991, and a Fellow of the British Academy in 1994.
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The Machine Age
A sweeping history of and meditation on humanity's relationship with machines, showing how we got here and what happens next. We live in a world made by machines; their development set its beat. The Machine Age tells the story of our relationship with machines from humanity's first tools down to the present and into the future. It charts the causes...Hardback$5900Elsewhere:$6500Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
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