Amy Webb - Böcker

We like to think that we are in control of the future of "artificial" intelligence. The reality, though, is that we--the everyday people whose data powers AI--aren't actually in control of anything. When, for example, we speak with Alexa, we contribute that data to a system we can't see and have no input into--one largely free from regulation or oversight. The big nine corporations--Amazon, Google, Facebook, Tencent, Baidu, Alibaba, Microsoft, IBM and Apple--are the new gods of AI and are short-changing our futures to reap immediate financial gain. In this book, Amy Webb reveals the pervasive, invisible ways in which the foundations of AI--the people working on the system, their motivations, the technology itself--are broken. Within our lifetimes, AI will, by design, begin to behave unpredictably, thinking and acting in ways which defy human logic. The big nine corporations may be inadvertently building and enabling vast arrays of intelligent systems that don't share our motivations, desires, or hopes for the future of humanity.Much more than a passionate, human-centered call-to-arms, this book delivers a strategy for changing course, and provides a path for liberating us from algorithmic decision-makers and powerful corporations.

A Washington Post BestsellerWinner of the 2017 Axiom Business Book Award in Business TechnologyAmy Webb is a noted futurist who combines curiosity, skepticism, colorful storytelling, and deeply reported, real-world analysis in this essential book for understanding the future. The Signals Are Talking reveals a systemic way of evaluating new ideas bubbling up on the horizon-distinguishing what is a real trend from the merely trendy. This book helps us hear which signals are talking sense, and which are simply nonsense, so that we might know today what developments-especially those seemingly random ideas at the fringe as they converge and begin to move toward the mainstream-that have long-term consequence for tomorrow.With the methodology developed in The Signals Are Talking, we learn how to think like a futurist and answer vitally important questions: How will a technology-like artificial intelligence, machine learning, self-driving cars, biohacking, bots, and the Internet of Things-affect us personally? How will it impact our businesses and workplaces? How will it eventually change the way we live, work, play, and think-and how should we prepare for it now?Most importantly, Webb persuasively shows that the future isn't something that happens to us passively. Instead, she allows us to see ahead so that we may forecast what's to come-challenging us to create our own preferred futures.

Synthetic biology will revolutionize how we define family, how we identify disease and treat aging, where we make our homes, and how we nourish ourselves. This fast-growing field-which uses computers to modify or rewrite genetic code-has created revolutionary, groundbreaking solutions such as the mRNA COVID vaccines, IVF, and lab-grown hamburger that tastes like the real thing. It gives us options to deal with existential threats: climate change, food insecurity, and access to fuel.But there are significant risks.Who should decide how to engineer living organisms? Whether engineered organisms should be planted, farmed, and released into the wild? Should there be limits to human enhancements? What cyber-biological risks are looming? Could a future biological war, using engineered organisms, cause a mass extinction event? Amy Webb and Andrew Hessel's riveting examination of synthetic biology and the bioeconomy provide the background for thinking through the upcoming risks and moral dilemmas posed by redesigning life, as well as the vast opportunities waiting for us on the horizon.

Synthetic biology is the technique that enables us not just to read and edit but also write DNA to program living biological structures as though they were tiny computers. Unlike cloning Dolly the sheep-which cut and copied existing genetic material-the future of synthetic biology might be something like an app store, where you could download and add new capabilities into any cell, microbe, plant, or animal.This breakthrough science has the potential to mitigate, perhaps solve, humanity's immediate and longer-term existential challenges: climate change; the feeding, clothing, housing, and caring for billions of humans; fighting the next viral outbreak before it becomes a global pandemic; old age as a treatable pathology; bringing back extinct animals.It could also be anarchic and socially destructive. With our governing structures created in an era before startling advances in technology, we are not prepared for a future in which life could be manipulated or programmed.As futurist Amy Webb and synthetic biologist Andrew Hessel show in this book, within the next decade, we will need to make important decisions: whether to program novel viruses to fight diseases, what genetic privacy will look like, who will "own" living organisms, how companies should earn revenue from engineered cells, and how to contain a synthetic organism in a lab. The Genesis Machine? provides the background for us to understand and grapple with these issues, and think through the religious, philosophical, and ethical implications for the future.

A year of HBR's essential thinking on tech—all in one place.Generative AI, biometrics, spatial computing, electric vehicles—new technologies like these are reshaping organizations at the hybrid office, on factory floors, and in the C-suite. What should you and your company be doing now to take advantage of the new opportunities these technologies are creating—and avoid falling victim to disruption?The Year in Tech 2025: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review will help you understand what the latest and most important tech innovations mean for your organization and how you can use them to compete and win in today’s turbulent business environment.Business is changing. Will you adapt or be left behind?Get up to speed and deepen your understanding of the topics that are shaping your company's future with the Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review series. Featuring HBR's smartest thinking on fast-moving issues—blockchain, cybersecurity, AI, and more—each book provides the foundational introduction and practical case studies your organization needs to compete today and collects the best research, interviews, and analysis to get it ready for tomorrow.You can't afford to ignore how these issues will transform the landscape of business and society. The Insights You Need series will help you grasp these critical ideas—and prepare you and your company for the future.

A year of HBR's essential thinking on tech—all in one place.Generative AI, biometrics, spatial computing, electric vehicles—new technologies like these are reshaping organizations at the hybrid office, on factory floors, and in the C-suite. What should you and your company be doing now to take advantage of the new opportunities these technologies are creating—and avoid falling victim to disruption?The Year in Tech 2025: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review will help you understand what the latest and most important tech innovations mean for your organization and how you can use them to compete and win in today’s turbulent business environment.Business is changing. Will you adapt or be left behind?Get up to speed and deepen your understanding of the topics that are shaping your company's future with the Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review series. Featuring HBR's smartest thinking on fast-moving issues—blockchain, cybersecurity, AI, and more—each book provides the foundational introduction and practical case studies your organization needs to compete today and collects the best research, interviews, and analysis to get it ready for tomorrow.You can't afford to ignore how these issues will transform the landscape of business and society. The Insights You Need series will help you grasp these critical ideas—and prepare you and your company for the future.

A year of HBR's essential thinking on tech—all in one place.Agentic AI, smart health care, advanced sensors, bioengineering—new technologies like these are reshaping organizations at the hybrid office, on factory floors, and in the C-suite. What should you and your company be doing now to take advantage of the new opportunities these technologies are creating—and avoid falling victim to disruption?The Year in Tech, 2026: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review will help you understand what the latest and most important tech innovations mean for your organization and how you can use them to compete and win in today's turbulent business environment.Business is changing. Will you adapt or be left behind?Get up to speed and deepen your understanding of the topics that are shaping your company's future with the Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review series. Featuring HBR's smartest thinking on fast-moving issues—blockchain, cybersecurity, AI, and more—each book provides the foundational introduction and practical case studies your organization needs to compete today and collects the best research, interviews, and analysis to get it ready for tomorrow.You can't afford to ignore how these issues will transform the landscape of business and society. The Insights You Need series will help you grasp these critical ideas—and prepare you and your company for the future.