12 bytes : how we got here, where we might go next

12 bytes How we got here, where we might go next

Jeanette Winterson, 1959-

Book - 2021

"Twelve eye-opening, mind-expanding, funny, and provocative essays on the implications of artificial intelligence for the way we live and the way we love from New York Times bestselling author Jeanette Winterson. "Talky, smart, anarchic and quite sexy," wrote Dwight Garner in the New York Times about Jeanette Winterson's last novel, Frankissstein, her first foray into the subject of AI. In 12 Bytes, Winterson's first nonfiction since her bestselling Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?, draws deeper from her years of considering artificial intelligence in all its bewildering manifestations. In brilliant, laser-focused, uniquely pointed, and witty storytelling, Winterson looks to history, religion, myth, literature..., the politics of race and gender, and computer science, to help us understand the radical changes to the way we live and love that are happening now. When we create non-biological life-forms, will we do so in our image? Or will we accept the once-in-a-species opportunity to remake ourselves in their image? What do love, caring, sex, and attachment look like when humans form connections with non-human helpers, teachers, sex-workers, and companions? And what will happen to our deep-rooted assumptions about gender? Will the physical body that is our home soon be enhanced by biological and neural implants, keeping us fitter, younger, and connected? Is it time to join Elon Musk and leave Planet Earth? With wit, compassion, and curiosity, Winterson tackles AI's most fascinating talking points, from the algorithms that data-dossier your whole life to the weirdness of backing up your brain"--

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Subjects
Artificial intelligence > Social aspects.
Essays.
Genres
Essays
Published
New York : Grove Press 2021.
Language
English
Main Author
Jeanette Winterson, 1959- (author)
Edition
First Grove Atlantic hardcover edition
Physical Description
viii, 324 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN
9780802159250
  • Love(lace) actually
  • A loom with a view
  • From sci-fi to wi-fi to my-wi
  • Gnostic know-how
  • He ain't heavy, he's my Buddha
  • Coal-fired vampire
  • Hot for a bot
  • My bear can talk
  • Fuck the binary
  • The future isn't female
  • Jurassic car park
  • I love, therefore I am.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Novelist Winterson (Frankissstein) covers the past, present, and future of artificial intelligence in this fascinating survey. As Winterson writes, "Human or machine, we need all the intelligence we can get to wrestle the future out of its pact with death--whether war, or climate breakdown, or probably both." Twelve essays, or "bytes," are broken into four sections: the past, "what's your superpower," "sex and other stories," and the future. Central to her thinking is the idea that cooperation, not competition, will help solve technological problems, and that in the not-so-distant future, "we will soon be living with AI in its own embodied (as robots) and non-embodied states." She argues emphatically that this merger cannot be successful unless diversity is factored into the programming and data collecting: "If AI and AGI really is going to benefit the many and not the few, people invited to the table must include more people of colour, more women, and more people with a humanities background." Through well-paced and articulate prose, Winterson makes granular tech know-how remarkably accessible--though she often ends sections with a series of questions that have a tendency to overwhelm. Still, Winterson achieves her goal of provoking critical thought and reflection. This is full of insight. (Oct.)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

The multi-award-winning, New York Times best-selling Winterson here offers a series of sharp-witted essays on how artificial intelligence might impact the way we live--no surprise to anyone who read her recent novel, the multi-best-booked Frankissstein. Will we make nonbiological life-forms in our image or revise our own? What happens to love and caring in a world of nonhuman teachers, sex workers, and companions? What about issues of gender, identity, and whether we are our bodies? Some deep thoughts.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

A vigorous, sharp mind probes the world of computer science and more. Hot on the heels of her recent, critically acclaimed novel, Frankissstein, the prolific Winterson offers 12 bites of the apple known as artificial intelligence, a key topic in the novel. These essays probe the past, present, and future of computer technology. The author begins by going back to key historical figures from her novel--Mary Shelley and Ada Lovelace, both of whom, "in their different ways…saw [AI] coming." Mary had her electric-powered literary life-form and Ada her dazzling, pre-computer mathematical skills. Winterson is excellent at compressing a great deal of technical, scientific, philosophical, literary, and religious material into digestible, witty, and provocative essays. She hopscotches with aplomb from vacuum tubes and transistors to the internet, Wi-Fi, issues of privacy, smartphones, AGI (artificial general intelligence), and robots, along with the Gnostics, Buddhism, and cryonics. In "Hot for a Bot," the author discusses the history of automata sex dolls and AI--enhanced love dolls: "Men do seem to think that a woman can be manmade, perhaps because a woman has been a commodity, a chattel, a possession, an object, for most of history." In "Fuck the Binary," she posits the intriguing question of whether "AI could be a portal into a value-free gender and race experience." Chronicling the contributions women have made in the so-called "hard" sciences--"Don't you love the language?"--Winterson bemoans the fact that, today, the "number of women taking computing-science degrees is falling." Despite all the incumbent dangers AI might hold, the author is optimistic and hopeful: "I am sure that our future as Homo sapiens is a merged future with the AI we are creating. Transhumanism will be the new mixed race." Tucked into the corners of these erudite essays are multitudes of fascinating facts and thoughtful what-if speculations. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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