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CLIMATE JUSTICE ; WHAT RICH NATIONS OWE THE WORLD - AND THE FUTURE
Cass R. Sunstein
- Mit Press
- 11 Février 2025
- 9780262049467
The social cost of carbon: The most important number you''ve never heard ofand what it means.
If you''re injuring someone, you should stopand pay for the damage you''ve caused. Why, this book asks, does this simple proposition, generally accepted, not apply to climate change? In -
A robust yet accessible introduction to the idea, history, and key applications of differential privacythe gold standard of algorithmic privacy protection.
Differential privacy (DP) is an increasingly popular, though controversial, approach to protecting personal data. DP protects confidential data by introducing carefully calibrated random numbers, called -
Invention and innovation : a brief history of hype and failure
Vaclav Smil
- Mit Press
- 3 Septembre 2024
- 9780262551014
From the
Included in BILL GATES''s 2023 Holiday Reading List
Included in Lit Hub's Most Anticipated Books of 2023
Included in The Next Big Idea Club's February 2023 Must-Read Books
"Every Smil book that I own is marked up with lots of notes that I take while reading. -
MAKING THE WORLD CLEAN ; WASTED LIVES, WASTED ENVIRONMENT, AND RACIAL CAPITALISM
Françoise Vergès
- Mit Press
- 24 Décembre 2024
- 9781913380397
An antiracist theory of cleaning.
Every year, capitalism produces tons of goods that go right to waste. Mining, deforestation, social inequalities, racism, extractivism, and hyper-consumption add to this fantastic amount of waste. How is their disappearance and invisibility organized? Who cleans the world? Upon whose bodies rests bourgeois and white cleanliness? -
DATA IS EVERYBODY'S BUSINESS ; THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DATA MONETIZATION
Cynthia M Beath, Barbara H Wixom
- Mit Press
- 4 Février 2025
- 9780262552981
A clear, engaging, evidence-based guide to monetizing data, for everyone from employee to board member.
Most organizations view data monetization--converting data into money--too narrowly: as merely selling data sets. But data monetization is a core business activity for both commercial
Key features of the book:
-;;;Grounded in twenty-eight years of academic research, including nine years of research at the MIT Sloan Center for Information Systems Research (MIT CISR)
-;;;Definitions of key terms, self-reflection questions, appealing graphics, and easy-to-use frameworks
-;;;Rich with detailed case studies
-;;;Supplemented by free MIT CISR website resources (cisr.mit.edu)
Ideal for organizations engaged in data literacy training, data-driven transformation, or digital transformation, -
A much-needed defense of liberalism--what it is, why it is under threat, and why we need it more than ever--from one of our most important political thinkers today.
More than at any time since World War II, liberalism is under pressure, even siege. On the right, some have given up on liberalism. They hold it responsible for the collapse of the family and traditional values, rampant criminality, disrespect for authority, and widespread immorality. On the left, some are turning their backs on liberalism. They think that it lacks the resources to handle the problems posed by entrenched inequalities, racism, sexism, corporate power, and environmental degradation. But those opposed to liberalism do not depict it accurately; they offer a caricature, and they neglect its history.
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An accessible journey through the seam that connects the digital world of the Internet to our physical world.
The stack--the conduit between our digital and physical worlds--is the elusive, mysterious, and least-understood part of the Internet. In the five seconds it took you to read that, 100 quadrillion bits of data just whizzed through the stack. Our metaphors--cloud, virtual, cyber--blind us to the incredible reality: The Internet is a physical thing: dingy, wet, and rusty. In -
How technology and policy can come together to remove carbon from our atmosphere.
Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) is recognized as essential for meeting "net-zero" climate targets. The first definitive resource on CDR, this book is an accessible guide meant to provide a fundamental understanding of the science behind CDR and how government, industry, and academia can work together to combat climate change. Taking a deep dive into the history and intricacies of CDR, Howard Herzog and Niall Mac Dowell--preeminent experts in the field--provide key insights into what CDR may look like as we continue to face a warming globe. -
THE HYPOCRISY TRAP ; HOW CHANGING WHAT WE CRITICIZE CAN IMPROVE OUR LIVES
Michael Hallsworth
- Mit Press
- 14 Octobre 2025
- 9780262050944
How our desire to stamp out hypocrisy is backfiring--and how learning to target our criticisms better can improve our politics, business, and personal relationships.
In our increasingly distrusting and polarized nation, accusations of hypocrisy are everywhere. But the strange truth is that our attempts to stamp out hypocrisy often backfire, creating what Michael Hallsworth calls -
An in-depth history of Large Language Models--and what their ubiquity, disruption, and creativity mean from a wider sociopolitical perspective.
In November 2022, ChatGPT swept the globe with a mixed frenzy of excitement and anxiety. Was this a step closer to reaching singularity or just another marvel in machine learning? Author Stephan Raaijmakers provides a comprehensive introduction to Large Language Models (LLMs), describing what exactly they are capable of from a technical and creative standpoint. This concise volume covers everything from the architecture of LLM neural networks to the limitations of LLMs to how our governments can regulate this technology. In explaining how exactly LLMs learn from data sets, Raaijmakers defangs the more sensational arguments we may be familiar with. Instead, he offers a more grounded approach to how this groundbreaking--and increasingly ubiquitous--form of artificial intelligence will shape our society for years to come. -
THRIVE ; MAXIMIZING WELL-BEING IN THE AGE OF AI
Ravi Bapna, Anindya Ghose
- Mit Press
- 8 Octobre 2024
- 9780262049313
How AI can positively impact so many aspects of our daily lives, from health and wellness to work, education, and home life.
AI is a powerful general-purpose technology that is reshaping the modern economy, but misperceptions about AI stand in the way of harnessing it for the betterment of humanity. In -
MULTI-AGENT REINFORCEMENT LEARNING ; FOUNDATIONS AND MODERN APPROACHES
Stefano V Albrecht
- Mit Press
- 17 Décembre 2024
- 9780262049375
The first comprehensive introduction to Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning (MARL), covering MARL's models, solution concepts, algorithmic ideas, technical challenges, and modern approaches.
Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning (MARL), an area of machine learning in which a collective of agents learn to optimally interact in a shared environment, boasts a growing array of applications in modern life, from autonomous driving and multi-robot factories to automated trading and energy network management. This text provides a lucid and rigorous introduction to the models, solution concepts, algorithmic ideas, technical challenges, and modern approaches in MARL. The book first introduces the field's foundations, including basics of reinforcement learning theory and algorithms, interactive game models, different solution concepts for games, and the algorithmic ideas underpinning MARL research. It then details contemporary MARL algorithms which leverage deep learning techniques, covering ideas such as centralized training with decentralized execution, value decomposition, parameter sharing, and self-play. The book comes with its own MARL codebase written in Python, containing implementations of MARL algorithms that are self-contained and easy to read. Technical content is explained in easy-to-understand language and illustrated with extensive examples, illuminating MARL for newcomers while offering high-level insights for more advanced readers. -
MATHEMATICS IN BIOLOGY
Markus Meister, Kyu Hyun Lee, Ruben Portugues
- Mit Press
- 18 Février 2025
- 9780262049405
A concise but rigorous textbook for advanced undergraduate and graduate students across the biological sciences that provides a foundation for understanding the methods used in quantitative biology.
Biology has turned into a quantitative science. The core problems in the life sciences today involve complex systems that require mathematical expression, yet most biologists are untrained in this dimension of the discipline. Bridging that gap, this practical textbook equips students to integrate advanced mathematical concepts with their biological education.;Mathematics in Biology covers three broad subjects--linear algebra, probability;and statistics, and dynamical systems--each treated at three levels: basic principles, advanced topics, and applications. Motivations and examples are drawn from diverse areas of study, while end-of-chapter exercises encourage creative applications. Based on nearly two decades of teaching at Harvard and Caltech, this rigorous but concise text provides an essential foundation for understanding the methods used in quantitative biology.;
-;;;Proven in the classroom
-;;;Suitable for advanced undergraduate and graduate students across the biological sciences
-;;;Offers accompanying online materials including code and solved exercises -
WHAT IS INTELLIGENCE? ; LESSONS FROM AI ABOUT EVOLUTION, COMPUTING, AND MINDS
Blaise Aguera Y Arcas
- Mit Press
- 23 Septembre 2025
- 9780262049955
What intelligence really is, and how AI's emergence is a natural consequence of evolution.
It has come as a shock to some AI researchers that a large neural net that predicts next words seems to produce a system with general intelligence. Yet this is consistent with a long-held view among some neuroscientists that the brain evolved precisely to predict the future--the "predictive brain" hypothesis.
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THE ARTIST IN THE MACHINE - THE WORLD OF AI-POWERED CREATIVITY
Arthur I Miller
- Mit Press
- 1 Octobre 2019
- 9780262042857
An authority on creativity introduces us to AI-powered computers that are creating art, literature, and music that may well surpass the creations of humans.Today''s computers are composing music that sounds "more Bach than Bach," turning photographs into paintings in the style of Van Gogh''s Starry Night, and even writing screenplays. But are computers truly creative--or are they merely tools to be used by musicians, artists, and writers? In this book, Arthur I. Miller takes us on a tour of creativity in the age of machines. Miller, an authority on creativity, identifies the key factors essential to the creative process, from "the need for introspection" to "the ability to discover the key problem." He talks to people on the cutting edge of artificial intelligence, encountering computers that mimic the brain and machines that have defeated champions in chess, Jeopardy!, and Go. In the central part of the book, Miller explores the riches of computer-created art, introducing us to artists and computer scientists who have, among much else, unleashed an artificial neural network to create a nightmarish, multi-eyed dog-cat; taught AI to imagine; developed a robot that paints; created algorithms for poetry; and produced the world''s first computer-composed musical, Beyond the Fence, staged by Android Lloyd Webber and friends.But, Miller writes, in order to be truly creative, machines will need to step into the world. He probes the nature of consciousness and speaks to researchers trying to develop emotions and consciousness in computers. Miller argues that computers can already be as creative as humans--and someday will surpass us. But this is not a dystopian account; Miller celebrates the creative possibilities of artificial intelligence in art, music, and literature.
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Structure and interpretation of computer programs
H. Abelson
- Mit Press
- 25 Juillet 1996
- 9780262510875
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs has had a dramatic impact on computer science curricula over the past decade. This long-awaited revision contains changes throughout the text. There are new implementations of most of the major programming systems in the book, including the interpreters and compilers, and the authors have incorporated many small changes that reflect their experience teaching the course at MIT since the first edition was published. A new theme has been introduced that emphasizes the central role played by different approaches to dealing with time in computational models: objects with state, concurrent programming, functional programming and lazy evaluation, and nondeterministic programming. There are new example sections on higher-order procedures in graphics and on applications of stream processing in numerical programming, and many new exercises. In addition, all the programs have been reworked to run in any Scheme implementation that adheres to the IEEE standard.
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A new way of thinking about data science and data ethics that is informed by the ideas of intersectional feminism.
Today, data science is a form of power. It has been used to expose injustice, improve health outcomes, and topple governments. But it has also been used to discriminate, police, and surveil. This potential for good, on the one hand, and harm, on the other, makes it essential to ask: Data science by whom? Data science for whom? Data science with whose interests in mind? The narratives around big data and data science are overwhelmingly white, male, and techno-heroic. In -
A concise introduction to cyborg theory that examines the way in which technology is situated, political, and embodied.
This introduction to cyborg theory provides a critical vantage point for analyzing the claims around emerging technologies like automation, robots, and AI. -
A concise, reader-friendly overview of pragmatism, the most influential school of American philosophical thought.
Pragmatism, Americas homegrown philosophy, has been a major intellectual movement for over a century. Unlike its rivals, it reaches well beyond the confines of philosophy into concerns and disciplines as diverse as religion, politics, science, and culture. In this concise, engagingly written overview, John R. Shook describes pragmatisms origins, concepts, and continuing global relevance and appeal. With attention to the movements original thinkers--Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, John Dewey, and George Herbert Mead--as well as its contemporary proponents, he explains how pragmatism thinks about what is real, what can be known, and what minds are doing. And because of pragmatisms far-reaching impact, Shook shows how its views on reality, truth, knowledge, and cognition coordinate with its approaches to agency, sociality, human nature, and personhood. -
WHITE SIGHT - VISUAL POLITICS AND PRACTICES OF WHITENESS
Nicholas Mirzoeff
- Mit Press
- 14 Février 2023
- 9780262047678
From the author of White supremacy is not only perpetuated by laws and police but also by visual culture and distinctive ways of seeing. Nicholas Mirzoeff argues that this form of white sight has a history. By understanding that it was not always a common practice, we can devise better ways to dismantle it. Spanning centuries across this wide-ranging text, Mirzoeff connects Renaissance innovations--from the invention of perspective and the erection of Apollo statues as monuments to (white) beauty and power to the rise of racial capitalism dependent on slave labor--with the ever-expanding surveillance technologies of the twenty-first century to show that white sight creates an oppressively racializing world, in which subjects who do not appear as white are under constant threat of violence.
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Analyzing recent events like the George Floyd protests and the Central Park birdwatching incident, Mirzoeff suggests that we are experiencing a general crisis of white supremacy that presents both opportunities and threats to social justice. If we do not seize this moment to dismantle white sight, then white supremacy might surge back stronger than ever. To that end, he highlights activist interventions to strike the power of the white heteropatriarchal gaze. -
An updated, revised, and comprehensive overview of the concepts related to cloud computing, including recent applications, innovations, and its future evolution.
In this Essential Knowledge volume, Nayan B. Ruparelia provides an updated and revised version of An indispensable guide to cloud computing for the layperson, -
A comprehensive introduction to the plastics life cycle--the impacts on our lives, our future, and our planet--and the actions we can take.
Everywhere we look, we are surrounded by plastics: perhaps you have a book in one hand and your phone--made of various metals, plastics, and glass--in the other, or you are reading this on your polyurethane mattress after having flipped on a plastic light switch. In this Essential Knowledge series volume, Imari Walker-Franklin and Jenna Jambeck provide a deep exploration of the entire life of plastic things--plastics production and use, plastic waste generation and management, the environmental and societal impacts of plastics in our environment, and, finally, the policies that can help reduce pollution caused by our heavy use of plastics.;
One of the most current and comprehensive summaries on the subject, -
THE BLIND SPOT ; WHY SCIENCE CANNOT IGNORE HUMAN EXPERIENCE
Adam Frank, Marcelo Gleiser, Evan Thompson
- Mit Press
- 1 Avril 2025
- 9780262553032
A compelling argument for including the human perspective within science, and for how human experience makes science possible.
"This is by far the best book I''ve read this year."
--Michael Pollan, Professor of the Practice of Non-fiction, Harvard University; #1 New York Times bestselling author
It's tempting to think that science gives us a God's-eye view of reality. But we neglect the place of human experience at our peril. In -
CHATGPT AND THE FUTURE OF AI ; THE DEEP LANGUAGE REVOLUTION
Terrence J Sejnowski
- Mit Press
- 29 Octobre 2024
- 9780262049252
An insightful exploration of Chat GPT and other advanced AI systems--how we got here, where we're headed, and what it all means for how we interact with the world.
In
