Machines of loving grace
by John Markoff · first published 2015
83% recommend17% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Traces the split between building AI to replace people and building tools to augment them, tying computing history to the intelligence augmentation tradition. For readers of computing history and Silicon Valley culture.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
"As robots are increasingly integrated into modern society--on the battlefield and the road, in business, education, and health--Pulitzer-Prize-winning New York Times science writer John Markoff searches for an answer to one of the most important questions of our age: will these machines help us, or will they replace us? In the past decade alone, Google introduced us to driverless cars, Apple debuted a personal assistant that we keep in our pockets, and an Internet of Things connected the smaller tasks of everyday life to the farthest reaches of the internet. There is little doubt that robots
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…hippie movement that began in the Bay Area in the late 70's and early 80's. Apple Computer was part of it (while IBM was not.) This era is described fairly accurately in Adam Curtis's "All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace" (a reference to the Richard Brautigan poem) and John Markoff's excellent "What The Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry" Highly recommend them, even if…
on “The Imaginarium of a Solarpunk Architect” ↗John Markoff's book, *Machines of Loving Grace", is a must read for anyone interested in the future (and who isn't).
on “NYT science reporter John Markoff: We shouldn’t worry about robots attacking us” ↗The coevolution of AI and IA (intelligence augmentation) is the very topic of John Markoff's new book "Machines of Loving Grace". He doesn't delve into the complexities of how human wetware may co evolve with AI (as Hsu does) so much as how AI-based software and hardware may augment and shape human activity of all kinds. A worthwhile…
on “Why human intelligence and AI will co-evolve” ↗Machines of Loving Grace by John Markoff. The cover says the book is a "sweeping history of the complicated and evolving relationships between humans and computer" and it is just that. A literate and thoughtful history with…
on “Ask HN: What books are you reading?” ↗John Markoff's new book "Machines of Loving Grace" is a great one about this AI vs IA topic. http://www.amazon.com/Machines-Loving-Grace-Common-Between/d...
on “IA or AI?” ↗Here's the best books I've read in the last year or so: >> Computer History & biographies: The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story, Michael Lewis The Second Coming of Steve Jobs, by Alan Deutschman Machines of Loving Grace, by John Markoff The Innovators, by Walter Isaacson Ghost in the Wires, by Kevin Mitnick Idea Man: A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft, by Paul Allen Creativity, Inc, by Ed Catmull (reading) >>…
on “Ask HN: What good books have you read lately?” ↗John Markoff's Machines of Loving Grace is another touchpoint to the Brautigan poem. The NY Times book review is worth looking at: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/23/books/review/machines-of-.... John's book is worth reading. Fred Turner's…
on “All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace” ↗…- Long, but good - "Sugar Shock" - still reading; hopefully will help me cut my sweet cravings [BIOGRAPHIES] - "The New New Thing" - about Jim Clark's life, one of the very first entrepreneurs - "Machines of Loving Grace" - about the research and the rise of AI - "Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution" - "The Second Coming of Steve Jobs" - About Pixar's story. Liked more than Isaacson's biography - "The Innovators"…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2016?” ↗Global Brain -Bloom Captive Mind -Milosz Machines of Loving Grace -Markoff Station 11 -Mandell (fiction) Sapiens -Harari Revenant (do not remember author/fiction) Argonauts -Nelson
on “Ask HN: What books have you read in the first half of 2016?” ↗