The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology
by Ray Kurzweil · 14 Jul 2005 · 761pp · 231,902 words
tricks, technology does not lose its transcendent power when its secrets are revealed. I am often reminded of Arthur C. Clarke's third law, that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Consider J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter stories from this perspective. These tales may be imaginary, but they are not unreasonable visions of our world
The Doomsday Calculation: How an Equation That Predicts the Future Is Transforming Everything We Know About Life and the Universe
by William Poundstone · 3 Jun 2019 · 283pp · 81,376 words
than forty orders of magnitude: Sandberg, Drexler, Ord 2018, 5–6. 3. “probably extremely far away”: Sandberg, Drexler, Ord 2018, 16. 4. Clarke’s words: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” is presented as Clarke’s Third Law in Profiles of the Future (1973). (Hence a self-reproducing robot can look like a monolith.) 5. Einstein
Space Odyssey: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece
by Michael Benson · 2 Apr 2018 · 614pp · 174,633 words
shattered cup, said, “It was time for your cup to die.” (From www.ashidakim.com.) CHAPTER SEVEN PURPLE HEARTS AND HIGH WIRES SUMMER–WINTER 1966 Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. —CLARKE’S THIRD LAW With main unit production over at least for the moment, Kubrick was free to focus on two major areas of concern
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of 2001 functioned almost as a rejection of the novel’s approach. (It was, however, also a filmic illustration of Clarke’s famous third law: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Here as elsewhere, Kubrick may at times have had a more intuitive grasp of Clarke’s principles than even the author did. For his part
The Gene: An Intimate History
by Siddhartha Mukherjee · 16 May 2016 · 824pp · 218,333 words
with a document. It was the graduation ceremony for the new genetics. “Clone or Die” If you know the question, you know half. —Herb Boyer Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. —Arthur C. Clarke Stan Cohen and Herb Boyer had also gone to Asilomar to debate the future of recombinant DNA. They found the conference irritating
Unweaving the Rainbow
by Richard Dawkins · 7 Aug 2011 · 339pp · 112,979 words
have seemed pure magic. As Arthur C. Clarke, the distinguished science fiction writer and evangelist for the limitless power of science and technology, has said, 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.' This has been called Clarke's Third Law, and I shall return to it. William Thomson, first Lord Kelvin, was one of the most distinguished
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are not sufficient grounds for believing in levitation or magic carpets. But why not? Clarke's Third Law does not work in reverse. Given that 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic', it does not follow that 'Any magical claim that anybody may make at any time is indistinguishable from a technological advance that will come in
AI 2041: Ten Visions for Our Future
by Kai-Fu Lee and Qiufan Chen · 13 Sep 2021
Models, the Future of Money, Singularity Acknowledgments Other Titles About the Authors What we want is a machine that can learn from experience. —Alan Turing Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. —Arthur C. Clarke INTRODUCTION BY KAI-FU LEE THE REAL STORY OF AI Artificial intelligence (AI) is smart software and hardware capable of performing tasks
The Fabric of Reality
by David Deutsch · 31 Mar 2012 · 511pp · 139,108 words
even guess some of the ways in which these wider laws would have to differ from the chessboard laws. Arthur C. Clarke once remarked that 'any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic'. This is true, but slightly misleading. It is stated from the point of view of a pre-scientific thinker, which is the wrong way round
The Grid: The Fraying Wires Between Americans and Our Energy Future
by Gretchen Bakke · 25 Jul 2016 · 433pp · 127,171 words
8 In Search of the Holy Grail CHAPTER 9 American Zeitgeist Afterword: Contemplating Death in the Afternoon Acknowledgments Notes Index A Note on the Author Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. —ARTHUR C. CLARKE Right now there’s three power companies in New York City: there is ConEd in Manhattan, there is the Brooklyn power company
Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech
by Brian Merchant · 25 Sep 2023 · 524pp · 154,652 words
of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells.” You can’t help but hear Arthur C. Clarke’s famous dictum that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”—indistinguishable because it benefits elites to keep it that way, because the webs of exploitation are so vast and opaque, and because the final product
The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies
by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee · 20 Jan 2014 · 339pp · 88,732 words
early twentieth centuries. This same period is called by others the Second Industrial Revolution, which is how we’ll refer to it in later chapters. “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” —Arthur C. Clarke IN THE SUMMER OF 2012, we went for a drive in a car that had no driver. During a research visit to
Science in the Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist
by Richard Dawkins · 15 Mar 2017 · 420pp · 130,714 words
Fantasyland
by Kurt Andersen · 5 Sep 2017
More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley's Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity
by Adam Becker · 14 Jun 2025 · 381pp · 119,533 words
The Transhumanist Reader
by Max More and Natasha Vita-More · 4 Mar 2013 · 798pp · 240,182 words
Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain
by David Eagleman · 29 May 2011 · 383pp · 92,837 words
Pandora's Brain
by Calum Chace · 4 Feb 2014 · 345pp · 104,404 words
The God Delusion
by Richard Dawkins · 12 Sep 2006 · 478pp · 142,608 words
The Logician and the Engineer: How George Boole and Claude Shannon Created the Information Age
by Paul J. Nahin · 27 Oct 2012 · 229pp · 67,599 words
The Idealist: Aaron Swartz and the Rise of Free Culture on the Internet
by Justin Peters · 11 Feb 2013 · 397pp · 102,910 words
Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History
by Kurt Andersen · 4 Sep 2017 · 522pp · 162,310 words
The Art of Software Security Assessment: Identifying and Preventing Software Vulnerabilities
by Justin Schuh · 20 Nov 2006 · 2,054pp · 359,149 words
Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: On the Tracks of the Great Railway Bazaar
by Paul Theroux · 9 Sep 2008 · 651pp · 190,224 words
Wasteland: The Dirty Truth About What We Throw Away, Where It Goes, and Why It Matters
by Oliver Franklin-Wallis · 21 Jun 2023 · 309pp · 121,279 words
Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To
by David A. Sinclair and Matthew D. Laplante · 9 Sep 2019
The Hype Machine: How Social Media Disrupts Our Elections, Our Economy, and Our Health--And How We Must Adapt
by Sinan Aral · 14 Sep 2020 · 475pp · 134,707 words
Race Against the Machine: How the Digital Revolution Is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy
by Erik Brynjolfsson · 23 Jan 2012 · 72pp · 21,361 words
Red November: Inside the Secret U.S.-Soviet Submarine War
by W. Craig Reed · 3 May 2010 · 523pp · 143,639 words
Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century
by P. W. Singer · 1 Jan 2010 · 797pp · 227,399 words
Into That Silent Sea: Trailblazers of the Space Era, 1961-1965
by Francis O. French, Colin Burgess and Paul Haney · 2 Jan 2007 · 647pp · 161,908 words
Ways of Being: Beyond Human Intelligence
by James Bridle · 6 Apr 2022 · 502pp · 132,062 words
The Silent Intelligence: The Internet of Things
by Daniel Kellmereit and Daniel Obodovski · 19 Sep 2013 · 138pp · 40,787 words
The Great Race: The Global Quest for the Car of the Future
by Levi Tillemann · 20 Jan 2015 · 431pp · 107,868 words
The New Gold Rush: The Riches of Space Beckon!
by Joseph N. Pelton · 5 Nov 2016 · 321pp · 89,109 words
Fuller Memorandum
by Stross, Charles · 14 Jan 2010 · 366pp · 107,145 words
Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civilization
by Stephen Cave · 2 Apr 2012 · 299pp · 98,943 words
The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World From Scratch
by Lewis Dartnell · 15 Apr 2014 · 398pp · 100,679 words
The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence
by Ray Kurzweil · 31 Dec 1998 · 696pp · 143,736 words
Augmented: Life in the Smart Lane
by Brett King · 5 May 2016 · 385pp · 111,113 words
Grand Transitions: How the Modern World Was Made
by Vaclav Smil · 2 Mar 2021 · 1,324pp · 159,290 words
Hyperfocus: How to Be More Productive in a World of Distraction
by Chris Bailey · 31 Jul 2018 · 272pp · 66,985 words
The End of Big: How the Internet Makes David the New Goliath
by Nicco Mele · 14 Apr 2013 · 270pp · 79,992 words
Makers
by Chris Anderson · 1 Oct 2012 · 238pp · 73,824 words
Gods and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Technology
by Adrienne Mayor · 27 Nov 2018
Come and Take It: The Gun Printer's Guide to Thinking Free
by Cody Wilson · 10 Oct 2016 · 246pp · 70,404 words
I'm Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59
by Douglas Edwards · 11 Jul 2011 · 496pp · 154,363 words
The Sirens' Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource
by Chris Hayes · 28 Jan 2025 · 359pp · 100,761 words
The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True
by Richard Dawkins · 3 Oct 2011 · 208pp · 67,288 words
I, Warbot: The Dawn of Artificially Intelligent Conflict
by Kenneth Payne · 16 Jun 2021 · 339pp · 92,785 words
Avogadro Corp
by William Hertling · 9 Apr 2014 · 247pp · 71,698 words
The Deep Learning Revolution (The MIT Press)
by Terrence J. Sejnowski · 27 Sep 2018
Fun Inc.
by Tom Chatfield · 13 Dec 2011 · 266pp · 67,272 words
The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems-And Create More
by Luke Dormehl · 4 Nov 2014 · 268pp · 75,850 words
Chasing the Moon: The People, the Politics, and the Promise That Launched America Into the Space Age
by Robert Stone and Alan Andres · 3 Jun 2019
Green Swans: The Coming Boom in Regenerative Capitalism
by John Elkington · 6 Apr 2020 · 384pp · 93,754 words
The Battery: How Portable Power Sparked a Technological Revolution
by Henry Schlesinger · 16 Mar 2010 · 336pp · 92,056 words
Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization
by Edward Slingerland · 31 May 2021
Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives
by Michael Specter · 14 Apr 2009 · 281pp · 79,958 words
Black Code: Inside the Battle for Cyberspace
by Ronald J. Deibert · 13 May 2013 · 317pp · 98,745 words
Bank 3.0: Why Banking Is No Longer Somewhere You Go but Something You Do
by Brett King · 26 Dec 2012 · 382pp · 120,064 words
How to Make a Spaceship: A Band of Renegades, an Epic Race, and the Birth of Private Spaceflight
by Julian Guthrie · 19 Sep 2016
The Paths Between Worlds: This Alien Earth Book One
by Paul Antony Jones · 19 Mar 2019
Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction
by Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner · 14 Sep 2015 · 317pp · 100,414 words
Gamers at Work: Stories Behind the Games People Play
by Morgan Ramsay and Peter Molyneux · 28 Jul 2011 · 500pp · 146,240 words
Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster
by Alistair Croll and Benjamin Yoskovitz · 1 Mar 2013 · 567pp · 122,311 words
User Friendly: How the Hidden Rules of Design Are Changing the Way We Live, Work & Play
by Cliff Kuang and Robert Fabricant · 7 Nov 2019
How to Spend a Trillion Dollars
by Rowan Hooper · 15 Jan 2020 · 285pp · 86,858 words
Escape from Hell
by Larry Niven; Jerry Pournelle · 1 Apr 2010 · 374pp · 91,966 words
Geek Wisdom
by Stephen H. Segal · 2 Aug 2011
The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance
by Steven Kotler · 4 Mar 2014 · 330pp · 88,445 words
Inferno
by Niven, Larry and Pournelle, Jerry · 2 Sep 2008 · 220pp · 57,974 words
Possiplex
by Ted Nelson · 2 Jan 2010
The Infinite Machine: How an Army of Crypto-Hackers Is Building the Next Internet With Ethereum
by Camila Russo · 13 Jul 2020 · 349pp · 102,827 words
What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry
by John Markoff · 1 Jan 2005 · 394pp · 108,215 words
The Economic Consequences of Mr Trump: What the Trade War Means for the World
by Philip Coggan · 1 Jul 2025 · 96pp · 36,083 words
Ansible for DevOps: Server and Configuration Management for Humans
by Jeff Geerling · 9 Oct 2015 · 313pp · 75,583 words
Digital Bank: Strategies for Launching or Becoming a Digital Bank
by Chris Skinner · 27 Aug 2013 · 329pp · 95,309 words