Patchen Barss – författare

A Guardian Best Science Book of the YearThe first biography - 'a stunning achievement' (Kai Bird, American Prometheus) - of the dazzling and painful life of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Roger PenroseWhen he was six years old, Roger Penrose discovered a sundial in a clearing near his house. Through that machine made of light, shadow, and time, Roger glimpsed a "world behind the world" of transcendently beautiful geometry. It spurred him on a journey to become one of the world's most influential mathematicians, philosophers, and physicists. Penrose would prove the limitations of general relativity, set a new agenda for theoretical physics, and astound colleagues and admirers with the elegance and beauty of his discoveries. However, as Patchen Barss documents in The Impossible Man, success came at a price: He was attuned to the secrets of the universe, but struggled to connect with loved ones, especially the women who care for or worked with him.Both erudite and poetic, The Impossible Man draws on years of research and interviews, as well as previously unopened archives to present a moving portrait of Penrose the Nobel Prize-winning scientist and Roger the human being. It reveals not just the extraordinary life of Roger Penrose, but asks who gets to be a genius, and who makes the sacrifices that allow one man to be one.

When Geoffrey Hinton, the pioneering architect of artificial neural networks, resigned from Google in 2023 following an epiphany about the dangers of artificial intelligence, it made headlines around the world.Smarter Than Us is his long-awaited call to arms. As he shows, only by fully understanding how AI works, can you see how dangerous it is becoming. Here he equips us with the scientific knowledge we urgently need.Grounding his arguments in neuroscience and computer science, he explains why we cannot expect superintelligent machines to remain subservient to us. AI, he argues, will change our view of our place in the universe as much as the Copernican or Darwinian revolutions. We must prepare for a future where our achievements are eclipsed by those of our creations. Survival depends not on dominating these systems, but on ensuring they care about our wellbeing. The future is uncertain, but we can shape it through our choices, including demanding governments regulate, and tech companies behave transparently and accountably. Deeply authoritative, persuasive, and humane, Smarter Than Us sets out what we can do while we are still in control.

Pornography: The force for change that has been written out of the history of world culture.From cave painting to photography to the internet, pornography has always been at the cutting edge in adopting and exploiting new developments in mass communication. And in so doing, it has helped to promote and propel those developments in ways that are rarely acknowledged. Without pornography, the internet would not have grown so quickly. The e-commerce payment systems that are now commonplace would be at a far more primitive stage security and usability. Without video streaming software developed for pornography sites, CNN would be struggling to deliver news clips. Without advertising from sex sites, Google could not have afforded YouTube.This smart, witty and well-researched history shows how a vast secret trade has bankrolled and shaped mainstream culture and its machines.From the Hardcover edition.