Smarter Than You Think: How Technology is Changing Our Minds for the Better
Clive Thompson
A brilliant examination into how the internet is profoundly changing the way we think.In this groundbreaking book, Wired writer Clive Thompson argues that the internet is boosting our brainpower, encouraging new ways of thinking, and making us more not less intelligent as is so often claimed.Our lives have been changed utterly and irrevocably by the rise of the internet and it is only now that we can begin to analyse this extraordinary phenomenon. The author argues that as we rely more and more for machines to help us think, our thinking itself is becoming richer and more complex. We’re able to learn more, retain it longer, to write in curious new forms, and even to think entirely new types of thoughts.Outsmart is filled with stories of people who are living through these profound technological changes. In a series of postcards from the near future, we meet characters such as Gordon Bell, an ageing millionaire who is saving a digital copy of everything that happens to him, and Eric Hovitz, one of the world’s leading artificial-intelligence researchers, who is creating software that is designed to let your computer sense your mood and then predict when you’re going to be most productive at work.Lucidly written and argued, Outsmart is a breathtaking original look at our Brave New World.
Copyright (#u8510e361-e09c-5a9c-b962-4f62d75d6b1a)
William Collins
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First published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2013
Copyright © Clive Thompson 2013
Clive Thompson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007427796
Ebook Edition © September 2013 ISBN: 9780007427789
Version: 2014-09-06
From the reviews of Smarter Than You Think: (#u8510e361-e09c-5a9c-b962-4f62d75d6b1a)
‘We should be grateful to have such a clear-eyed and lucid interpreter of our changing technological culture as Clive Thompson. Smarter Than You Think is an important, insightful book about who we are, and who we are becoming’
Joshua Foer, New York Times bestselling author of Moonwalking with Einstein
‘Almost without noticing it, the internet has become our intellectual exoskeleton. Rather than just observing this evolution, Clive Thompson takes us to the people, places and technologies driving it, bringing deep reporting, storytelling and analysis to one of the most profound shifts in human history’
Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail
‘There’s good news in this dazzling book: technology is not the enemy. Smarter Than You Think reports on how the digital world has helped individuals harness a powerful, collaborative intelligence – becoming better problem-solvers and more creative human beings’
Jane McGonigal, author of Reality is Broken
‘Thompson has started an important debate in this lively and accessible book’
Scotsman
Dedication (#u8510e361-e09c-5a9c-b962-4f62d75d6b1a)
To Emily, Gabriel, and Zev
Contents
Cover (#ud05700c4-0271-51ca-b27a-f8eaa008b0ca)
Title Page (#u7f5b8db3-b839-5351-bc87-9f5527d664d7)
Copyright
Praise
Dedication
The Rise of the Centaurs
We, the Memorious
Public Thinking
The New Literacies
The Art of Finding
The Puzzle-Hungry World
Digital School
Ambient Awareness
The Connected Society
Epilogue
Notes
Index
Acknowledgments
About the Author
About the Publisher
The Rise of the Centaurs_ (#u8510e361-e09c-5a9c-b962-4f62d75d6b1a)
Who’s better at chess—computers or humans?
