Science Fiction Tried to Warn Us about AI. Or Did It?, by Tom Gammarino Essay [email protected] Wed, 03/01/2023 - 03:46 Photo by NASA / Unsplash “All our AI Frankenstein stories,” the author writes, “warn us that AI will destroy us, but far louder than that, they promise that the future is going to be mind-blowing and epic.” Will we heed the warnings? Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is the literary work that most clearly established the conventions of science fiction as we know it. Not only did the 1818 novel pioneer the archetype of the mad scientist, it also established one of the genre’s most important cultural roles: to warn us about ways humans, through our hubris, might create the very beings that eventually undo us. In subtitling the novel The Modern Prometheus, Shelley harked back to the Titan who stole fire from the gods and was punished by having his regenerating liver devoured every day by an eagle (since the liver was the seat of the emotions for the Greeks, we might as well translate it as “heart”). Inspired by the experiments of Luigi Galvani, who used electric current to stimulate the leg of a dissected frog, and his nephew Giovanni Aldini, who ran a similar experiment on a hanged criminal, Shelley had her mad scientist play God by endowing a patchwork of human remains with the spark of life. Two centuries later, the resulting monstrosity serves as a stand-in for any of our runaway technologies — the internal... Continue reading at 'World Literature Today'
[ World Literature Today | 2023-03-01 09:46:57 UTC ]
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Springer published 2,400 English-language scientific and professional journals and more than 9,000 new books in 2014, with subjects ranging from science, technology and medicine to business and transportation. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-06-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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When it comes to high-calibre non-fiction, risk-averse trade publishing houses are producing too many copycat ‘smart thinking’ books that promise more than they deliver. But praise should be given to the university pressesAmid the ambient wails of doom about the publishing industry, I’d like to... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2015-06-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The reputation of an author writing a continuation novel in a well-established brand series is just as important as the brand itself, publicists have told The Bookseller. Novelist Sophie Hannah added that authors who are fans of the series they are writing in can channel the original author... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-06-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Bonnier Publishing is looking to expand its fiction division and is recruiting for five managerial roles. The division, which includes children’s imprints Hot Key Books and Piccadilly Press and adult fiction imprints Zaffre and Twenty7, is looking to hire a director/head of export sales, key... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-06-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Did you know every two days, humans generate as much data as we did from the dawn of history up until 2003? AJ Steiger on how the internet means teenagers are more connected and empowered than ever before… but more vulnerable too – and how our books reflect this dualityThink about this for a... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2015-06-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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In Malaysia, publishers including Buku Fixi and Legen Press, are capitalizing on social media to find writers of pulp fiction, selling 1m+ copies. The post Pulp Fiction as a Way of Escape in Malaysia appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2015-06-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Walker Books has acquired a children’s non-fiction series that helps children explore science, maths, politics and geography through football. The books are written by Alex Bellos and Ben Lyttleton and the first, The Football Academy, will be published in hardback in September 2016. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-06-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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After 750 fans gave Judy Blume a standing ovation before she even said a word on stage, Jennifer Weiner kicked off an hour-long Q&A with Blume during BookCon. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-06-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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German writer and director Jenny Erpenbeck has won the 2015 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize for The End of Days (Portobello Books), translated by Susan Bernofsky, in the prize’s 25th anniversary year. Erpenbeck and Bernofsky were presented with the £10,000 award, which they will share, at a... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-05-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Writers are contributing to the fall in their incomes by penning free pieces for large companies in the hope that it will raise their profile and lead to book sales, Roxana Robinson, president of The Authors Guild, has told The Bookseller. She also said that Amazon was devaluing books and writing. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-05-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Books translated for the fast-growing Chinese market may be censored without their authors’ knowledge, a writers’ advocacy group reportsA US-based advocacy group is warning Western authors to be vigilant about censorship of their work, which is sometimes done without their knowledge, in China’s... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2015-05-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Alexander McCall Smith has won this year’s Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Fatty O’Leary’s Dinner Party, published by Birlinn imprint Polygon. This is the first time McCall Smith, the author of No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series published by Little, Brown, has appeared on the comic... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-05-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Galley Beggar Press (GBP) will launch a non-fiction list in early 2016 with a memoir by novelist Toby Litt and a title from début writer Megan Dunn. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-05-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Despite the much-discussed 15% drop in Christian fiction print unit sales from 2013 to 2014, as reported by Nielsen BookScan, publishers aren’t sounding the category’s death knell yet. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-05-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Independent publishers have taken the majority of spots on the 15-strong longlist for the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize 2015. The prize celebrates great British fiction and each year awards a group of eight writers with £5,000 each. This is the first time the prize has made public a... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-05-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Lee Child and Paula Hawkins have given Transworld two chart-toppers in this week's bestseller lists. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-05-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Bloomsbury cookery imprint Absolute Press has signed a cookbook from Michelin starred chef Tom Kerridge. Publisher Jon Croft signed rights in Tom's Table: My Favourite Everyday Recipes in a deal with Deborah McKenna Ltd. The book will feature 100 recipes focusing around Kerridge's home-cooked... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-05-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A new non-fiction book club on Claudia Winkleman's weekly BBC Radio 2 "Arts Show" is to launch this autumn, as part of The Reading Agency partnership with the station. The book club follows on from the Radio 2 Book Club on Simon Mayo's show, and a children's writing competition called 500 Words... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-04-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The shift to social reading is “liable to consign the traditional publisher and many a writer to decline and defeat in the Civil War for Books”, Philip Gwyn Jones is to say today (16th April), with the reader becoming the prize. In a speech at the London Book Fair this afternoon, Gwyn Jones... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-04-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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