Digital Ape: How to Live (in peace) with Smart Machines

How smart machines are transforming us all - and what we should do about it.

How smart machines are transforming us all - and what we should do about it.

The smart machines revolution is re-shaping our lives and our societies. Here, Nigel Shadbolt (one of Britain's leading authorities on artificial intelligence) and Roger Hampson dispel terror, confusion, and misconception. We are not about to be elbowed aside by a rebel army of super-intelligent robots of our own creation. We were using tools before we became Homo sapiens, and will continue to control them. How we exercise that control - in our private lives, in employment, in politics - and make the best of the wonderful opportunities, will determine our collective future well-being.

Lucid, well-informed, and deeply human, The Digital Ape offers a unique approach. The authors prefer to add augmented wisdom to artificial intelligence.



'This is a brilliantly readable, genuinely cutting-edge book that is also often very entertaining. Of all the recent studies of automation and AI, The Digital Ape stands head and shoulders above the rest. Shadbolt and Hampson have written a landmark book.'
-Andrew Keen, author of How to Fix the Future and The Internet is Not the Answer

'Numbed by dire warnings of technological Armageddon? Computer scientist Nigel Shadbolt and economist Roger Hampson dispel the miasma with this superb survey of the landscape we "digital apes" have wrought.'
-Barbara Kiser, Nature

'All explore the relationship between the human animal and what might be its most momentous creation yet- artificial intelligence ... In a series of wide-ranging chapters, the authors argue that human beings are not just distinguished by their ability to use tools but also largely shaped by it.'
-Weekend Australian