Would you let an algorithm determine your fate? Hannah Fry lifts the lid on the world of algorithms, examining how they impact our future and whether they really are an improvement on the humans they replace.

Winner Of The Royal Society Insight Investment Science Book Prize 2020. How proteins, machine learning and molecular chemistry can teach us about the complexities of human behaviour and the world around us How do we understand the people around us? How do we recognise people's motivations, their behaviour, or even their facial expressions? And, when do we learn the social cues that dictate human behaviour? Diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder at the age of eight, Camilla Pang struggled to understand the world around her and the way people worked. Desperate for a solution, Camilla asked her mother if there was an instruction manual for humans that she could consult. But, without the blueprint to life she was hoping for, Camilla began to create her own. Now armed with a PhD in biochemistry, Camilla dismantles our obscure social customs and identifies what it really means to be human using her unique expertise and a language she knows best: science. Through a set of scientific principles, this book examines life's everyday interactions including: - Decisions and the route we take to make them; - Conflict and how we can avoid it; - Relationships and how we establish them; - Etiquette and how we conform to it. Explaining Humans is an original and incisive exploration of human nature and the strangeness of social norms, written from the outside looking in. Camilla's unique perspective of the world, in turn, tells us so much about ourselves - about who we are and why we do it - and is a fascinating guide on how to lead a more connected, happier life.

A passionate defence of humanity and a work of radical optimism from the international bestselling author of Postcapitalism How do we preserve what makes us human in an age of uncertainty? Are we now just consumers shaped by market forces? A sequence of DNA? A collection of base instincts? Or will we soon be supplanted by algorithms and A.I. anyway? In Clear Bright Future, Paul Mason calls for a radical, impassioned defence of the human being, our universal rights and freedoms and our power to change the world around us. Ranging from economics to Big Data, from neuroscience to the culture wars, he draws from his on-the-ground reporting from mass protests in Istanbul to riots in Washington, as well as his own childhood in an English mining community, to show how the notion of humanity has become eroded as never before. In this book Paul Mason argues that we are still capable - through language, innovation and co-operation - of shaping our future. He offers a vision of humans as more than puppets, customers or cogs in a machine. This work of radical optimism asks: Do you want to be controlled? Or do you want something better?

At the terrible heart of the modern age lies Auschwitz. In a total inversion of earlier hopes about the use of science and technology to improve, extend and protect human life, Auschwitz manipulated the same systems to quite different ends. In Sybille Steinbacher’s terse, powerful new book, the reader is led through the process by which something unthinkable to any European in the 1930s had become a sprawling, industrial reality during the course of the world war. How Auschwitz grew and mutated into an entire dreadful city, how both those who managed it and those who were killed by it came to be in Poland in the 1940s, and how it was allowed to happen, is something everyone needs to understand.

At the terrible heart of the modern age lies Auschwitz. In a total inversion of earlier hopes about the use of science and technology to improve, extend and protect human life, Auschwitz manipulated the same systems to quite different ends. In Sybille Steinbacher’s terse, powerful new book, the reader is led through the process by which something unthinkable to any European in the 1930s had become a sprawling, industrial reality during the course of the world war. How Auschwitz grew and mutated into an entire dreadful city, how both those who managed it and those who were killed by it came to be in Poland in the 1940s, and how it was allowed to happen, is something everyone needs to understand.

How proteins, machine learning and molecular chemistry can teach us about the complexities of human behaviour and the world around us. How do we understand the people around us? How do we recognise people’s motivations, their behaviour, or even their facial expressions? And, when do we learn the social cues that dictate human behaviour? Diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder at the age of eight, Camilla Pang struggled to understand the world around her and the way people worked. Desperate for a solution, Camilla asked her mother if there was an instruction manual for humans that she could consult. But, without the blueprint to life she was hoping for, Camilla began to create her own. Now armed with a PhD in biochemistry, Camilla dismantles our obscure social customs and identifies what it really means to be human using her unique expertise and a language she knows best: science. Through a set of scientific principles, this book examines life’s everyday interactions including: - Decisions and the route we take to make them; - Conflict and how we can avoid it; - Relationships and how we establish them; - Etiquette and how we conform to it. Explaining Humans is an original and incisive exploration of human nature and the strangeness of social norms, written from the outside looking in. Camilla’s unique perspective of the world, in turn, tells us so much about ourselves - about who we are and why we do it - and is a fascinating guide on how to lead a more connected, happier life.

How proteins, machine learning and molecular chemistry can teach us about the complexities of human behaviour and the world around us. How do we understand the people around us? How do we recognise people’s motivations, their behaviour, or even their facial expressions? And, when do we learn the social cues that dictate human behaviour? Diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder at the age of eight, Camilla Pang struggled to understand the world around her and the way people worked. Desperate for a solution, Camilla asked her mother if there was an instruction manual for humans that she could consult. But, without the blueprint to life she was hoping for, Camilla began to create her own. Now armed with a PhD in biochemistry, Camilla dismantles our obscure social customs and identifies what it really means to be human using her unique expertise and a language she knows best: science. Through a set of scientific principles, this book examines life’s everyday interactions including: - Decisions and the route we take to make them; - Conflict and how we can avoid it; - Relationships and how we establish them; - Etiquette and how we conform to it. Explaining Humans is an original and incisive exploration of human nature and the strangeness of social norms, written from the outside looking in. Camilla’s unique perspective of the world, in turn, tells us so much about ourselves - about who we are and why we do it - and is a fascinating guide on how to lead a more connected, happier life.

A cutting-edge examination of what it means to be human and to have a "self" in the face of new scientific developments in genetic editing, cloning and neural downloading. After seeing his own cells used to grow clumps of new neurons - essentially mini-brains - Philip Ball begins to examine the concepts of identity and consciousness. Delving into humanity’s deep evolutionary past to look at how complex creatures like us emerged from single-celled life, he offers a new perspective on how humans think about ourselves. In an age when we are increasingly encouraged to regard the "self" as an abstract sequence of genetic information, or as a pattern of neural activity that might be "downloaded" to a computer, he return us to the body - to flesh and blood - and anchors a conception of personhood in this unique and ephemeral mortal coil. How to Build a Human brings us back to ourselves - but in doing so, it challenges old preconceptions and values. It asks us to rethink how we exist in the world.

A cutting-edge examination of what it means to be human and to have a 'self' in the face of new scientific developments in genetic editing, cloning and neural downloading. After seeing his own cells used to grow clumps of new neurons – essentially mini-brains – Philip Ball begins to examine the concepts of identity and consciousness. Delving into humanity's deep evolutionary past to look at how complex creatures like us emerged from single-celled life, he offers a new perspective on how humans think about ourselves. In an age when we are increasingly encouraged to regard the 'self' as an abstract sequence of genetic information, or as a pattern of neural activity that might be 'downloaded' to a computer, he return us to the body – to flesh and blood – and anchors a conception of personhood in this unique and ephemeral mortal coil. How to Build a Human brings us back to ourselves – but in doing so, it challenges old preconceptions and values. It asks us to rethink how we exist in the world.

A cutting-edge examination of what it means to be human and to have a "self" in the face of new scientific developments in genetic editing, cloning and neural downloading. After seeing his own cells used to grow clumps of new neurons - essentially mini-brains - Philip Ball begins to examine the concepts of identity and consciousness. Delving into humanity’s deep evolutionary past to look at how complex creatures like us emerged from single-celled life, he offers a new perspective on how humans think about ourselves. In an age when we are increasingly encouraged to regard the "self" as an abstract sequence of genetic information, or as a pattern of neural activity that might be "downloaded" to a computer, he return us to the body - to flesh and blood - and anchors a conception of personhood in this unique and ephemeral mortal coil. How to Build a Human brings us back to ourselves - but in doing so, it challenges old preconceptions and values. It asks us to rethink how we exist in the world.

In The Story of the Human Body, Daniel Lieberman, Professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard, shows how we need to change our world to fit our hunter-gatherer bodies This ground-breaking book of popular science explores how the way we use our bodies is all wrong. From an evolutionary perspective, if normal is defined as what most people have done for millions of years, then it's normal to walk and run 9 -15 kilometres a day to hunt and gather fresh food which is high in fibre, low in sugar, and barely processed. It's also normal to spend much of your time nursing, napping, making stone tools, and gossiping with a small band of people. Our 21st-century lifestyles, argues Daniel Lieberman, are out of synch with our stone-age bodies. Never have we been so healthy and long-lived - but never, too, have we been so prone to a slew of problems that were, until recently, rare or unknown, from asthma, to diabetes, to - scariest of all - overpopulation. The Story of the Human Body asks how our bodies got to be the way they are, and considers how that evolutionary history - both ancient and recent - can help us evaluate how we use our bodies. How is the present-day state of the human body related to the past? And what is the human body's future? 'Monumental. The Story of the Human Body, by one of our leading experts, takes us on an epic voyage' - Neil Shubin, author of Your Inner Fish 'Riveting, enlightening, and more than a little frightening' - Christopher McDougall, author of Born to Run Daniel Lieberman is the Chair of the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard and a leader in the field. He has written nearly 100 articles, many appearing in the journals Nature and Science, and his cover story on barefoot running in Nature was picked up by major media the world over. His research and discoveries have been highlighted in newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times, Boston Globe, Discover, and National Geographic.

A New York Times technology columnist's timely, counterintuitive, and highly practical guide to success in the age of A.I. and automation. The machines are here. After decades of sci-fi fantasies and hype, A.I. and automation have leapt out of research labs and Silicon Valley engineering departments and into the center of our lives. These machines aren't just threatening jobs--they're shaping every part of our lives, from the news we see to the products we buy and the relationships we form. And while the timeless debate over whether or not robots will lead to mass unemployment rages on, a much more important question has gotten ignored: What does it mean to be a human in the age of machines? In Futureproof: 9 Rules for Humans in the Age of Automation, New York Times technology columnist Kevin Roose lays out a pragmatic vision of how people can thrive in the machine age by making themselves irreplaceably human. In nine accessible lessons, Roose prepares readers to thrive in the coming age of intelligent machines. He shares the secrets of people and organizations that have successfully survived technological change, and explains how we can protect our own futures, with lessons like: - Do work that is surprising, social, and scarce (the types of work machines can't do) - Demote your phone - Work near other people - Treat A.I. like an army of chimpanzees - Add more friction to your life Roose's examination of the future rejects the conventional wisdom that in order to compete with machines, we have to become more like them--hyper-efficient, data-driven, code-writing workhorses. Instead, he says, we should let machines be machines, and focus on doing the kinds of creative, inspiring, and meaningful work only humans can do.

A New York Times technology columnist's timely, counterintuitive, and highly practical guide to success in the age of A.I. and automation. The machines are here. After decades of sci-fi fantasies and hype, A.I. and automation have leapt out of research labs and Silicon Valley engineering departments and into the center of our lives. These machines aren't just threatening jobs--they're shaping every part of our lives, from the news we see to the products we buy and the relationships we form. And while the timeless debate over whether or not robots will lead to mass unemployment rages on, a much more important question has gotten ignored: What does it mean to be a human in the age of machines? In Futureproof: 9 Rules for Humans in the Age of Automation, New York Times technology columnist Kevin Roose lays out a pragmatic vision of how people can thrive in the machine age by making themselves irreplaceably human. In nine accessible lessons, Roose prepares readers to thrive in the coming age of intelligent machines. He shares the secrets of people and organizations that have successfully survived technological change, and explains how we can protect our own futures, with lessons like: - Do work that is surprising, social, and scarce (the types of work machines can't do) - Demote your phone - Work near other people - Treat A.I. like an army of chimpanzees - Add more friction to your life Roose's examination of the future rejects the conventional wisdom that in order to compete with machines, we have to become more like them--hyper-efficient, data-driven, code-writing workhorses. Instead, he says, we should let machines be machines, and focus on doing the kinds of creative, inspiring, and meaningful work only humans can do.

The international bestseller - a whip-smart, entertaining exploration of the geometry that underlies our world, from the author of How Not to Be Wrong How should a democracy choose its representatives? How can you stop a pandemic from sweeping the world? How do computers learn to play chess? Can ancient Greek proportions predict the stock market? (Sorry, no.) What should your kids learn in school if they really want to learn to think? The answers to all these questions can be found in geometry. If you're like most people, geometry is a dimly-remembered exercise, handed down from the ancients, that you gladly left behind in school. It seemed to be a tortuous way of proving some fact about triangles that was obvious to you in the first place. That's not geometry. OK, it is geometry, but only a tiny part, that has as much to do with the modern, fast-moving discipline as conjugating a verb has to do with a great novel. In Shape, Sunday Times-bestselling author Jordan Ellenberg reveals the geometry underneath some of the most important scientific, political, and philosophical problems we face, from the spread of coronavirus to rise of machine learning. The word 'geometry,' from the Greek, means 'measuring the world.' But geometry doesn't just measure the world - it explains it. Shape shows us how.

Stephen Fry's bestselling memoir tells how, sent to a boarding school 200 miles from home at the age of seven, he survived beatings, misery, love, ecstasy, carnal violation, expulsion, imprisonment, criminal conviction, probation and catastrophe to emerge, at eighteen, ready to try and face the world in which he had always felt a stranger. Fry writes with the wit to which we have become accustomed, but with shocking candour too. In an age of glossy celebrity autobiographies, Moab is My Washpot sets the high standard to which others should aspire.

Stephen Fry's bestselling memoir tells how, sent to a boarding school 200 miles from home at the age of seven, he survived beatings, misery, love, ecstasy, carnal violation, expulsion, imprisonment, criminal conviction, probation and catastrophe to emerge, at eighteen, ready to try and face the world in which he had always felt a stranger. Fry writes with the wit to which we have become accustomed, but with shocking candour too. In an age of glossy celebrity autobiographies, Moab is My Washpot sets the high standard to which others should aspire.