David Ewing Duncan – författare

''If you want to see what that future might look like, Duncan''s book is a fun place to start''NPR''Intensely readable, downright terrifying, and surprisingly uplifting'' Vanity Fair ''5 books not to miss . . . A fascinating work of imaginative futurology''USA TodayOne of Time magazine''s ''32 Books You Need to Read This Summer'' - ''a riveting read'' One of David Baldacci and Elizabeth Acevedo''s best summer reads, on USA Today''s Today programme ''A refreshing variation on the will-intelligent-robots-bring-Armageddon genre . . . this colourful mixture of expert futurology and quirky speculation does not disappoint'' Kirkus ReviewsWhat robot and AI systems are being built and imagined right now? What do they say about us, their creators? Will they usher in a fantastic new future, or destroy us? What do some of our greatest thinkers, from physicist Brian Greene and futurist Kevin Kelly to inventor Dean Kamen, geneticist George Church, and filmmaker Tiffany Shlain, anticipate about our human-robot future? For even as robots and AI intrigue us and make us anxious about the future, our fascination with robots has always been about more than the potential of the technology - it''s also about what robots tell us about being human.From present-day Facebook and Amazon bots to near-future ''intimacy'' bots and ''the robot that swiped my job'' bots, bestselling American popular science writer David Ewing Duncan''s Talking to Robots is a wonderfully entertaining and insightful guide to possible future scenarios about robots, both real and imagined.Featured bots include robot drivers; doc bots; politician bots; warrior bots; sex bots; synthetic bio bots; dystopic bots that are hopefully just bad dreams; and ultimately, God Bot (as described by physicist Brian Greene).These scenarios are informed by discussions with well-known thinkers, engineers, scientists, artists, philosophers and others, who share with us their ideas, hopes and fears about robots. David spoke with, among others, Kevin Kelly, David Baldacci, Brian Greene, Dean Kamen, Craig Venter, Stephanie Mehta, David Eagleman, George Poste, George Church, General R. H. Latiff, Robert Seigel, Emily Morse, David Sinclair, Ken Goldberg, Sunny Bates, Adam Gazzaley, Tim O''Reilly, Tiffany Shlain, Eric Topol and Juan Enriquez.These discussions, along with some reporting on bot-tech, bot-history and real-time societal and ethical issues with robots, are the launch pads for unfurling possible bot futures that are informed by how people and societies have handled new technologies in the past.The book describes how robots work, but its primary focus is on what our fixation with bots and AI says about us as humans: about our hopes and anxieties; our myths, stories, beliefs and ideas about beings both real and artificial; and our attempts to attain perfection.We are at a pivotal moment when our ancient infatuation with human-like beings with certain attributes or superpowers - in mythology, religion and storytelling - is coinciding with our ability to actually build some of these entities.

''An epic travelogue, brimming with the excitement of discovery. With characteristic panache, Venter unveils the teeming array of bacteria, viruses, and eukaryotes that crowd our planet''s oceans'' - Siddhartha Mukherjee''This page-turner gives . . . the thrill of seeing our planet''s largest universe through the brilliant, intrepid eyes of the scientist who has done more than anyone to unlock the secrets of life'' - Martine Rothblatt''A tour de force . . . Venter has expanded biology''s horizons. This book explores microbial life on a global scale, providing cutting-edge solutions to problems of environmental change'' - Aristides Patrinos''A ripping tale . . . to revolutionize our understanding of our bodies, the oceans, and the planet'' - Jack Gilbert''An exhilarating account of how creative science is accomplished'' - Sir Richard J. Roberts''[A] fascinating tour of Planet Microbe'' - Bill McKibben''Venter and Duncan expand our scope of what it means to be alive'' - Jamie Metzl''Inspiring ... change[s] our ideas of how biology is done'' - TelegraphUpon completing his historic work on the Human Genome Project in 2002, J. Craig Venter declared that he would sequence the genetic code of all life on earth. Thus began a fifteen-year quest to collect DNA from the world''s oldest and most abundant form of life: microbes. Boarding the Sorcerer II, a 100-foot sailboat turned research vessel, Venter travelled over 65,000 miles around the globe to sample ocean water and the microscopic life within.In this book, Venter and science writer David Ewing Duncan tell the remarkable story of these expeditions and of the momentous discoveries that ensued-of plant-like bacteria that get their energy from the sun, proteins that metabolize vast amounts of hydrogen, and microbes whose genes shield them from ultraviolet light. The result was a massive library of millions of unknown genes, thousands of unseen protein families, and new lineages of bacteria that revealed the unimaginable complexity of life on earth. Yet despite this exquisite diversity, Venter encountered sobering reminders of how human activity is disturbing the delicate microbial ecosystem that nurtures life on earth. In the face of unprecedented climate change, Venter and Duncan show how we can harness the microbial genome to develop alternative sources of energy, food, and medicine that might ultimately avert our destruction.A captivating story of exploration and discovery, this book restores microbes to their rightful place as crucial partners in our evolutionary past and guides to our future.