E-Books →Rise of the Nerds How a Technocratic Elite Manipulates Your Life and Gambles With Your Future

Powerful companies have more access to our private matters than ever before. Reality goes beyond Orwell. Artificial intelligence is all around us without many people being aware of it. Sophisticated algorithms can predict our behavior with increasing accuracy. Some extreme futurists are fantasizing about a superintelligence, smarter than humans. Machines are taking away jobs, rewarding their owners richly. The global economy is plagued by a persistent unemployment and growing income inequality. Millions of people live from paycheck to paycheck and can hardly keep their heads above water. What will happen if their labor is no longer needed? The concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a small elite is eroding democracy.
The changes are not only technical in nature, but also transform us humans. Genetic engineering and human enhancement therapies gamble with the basis of our existence. Are we ready to hand over our future to these improvers of mankind?
Like priests at the altar, the technodeterminists are pushing their agenda with evangelical fervor. Technology-friendly literature can be found like sand on the beach. It's not a surprise that those people who benefit most from technology celebrate it. This book is different because it approaches the matter from a skeptic's point of view. It throws crucial light on the question of who will be the winners of the transformations and who the losers. It puts current issues in a historical perspective and presents some people behind today's influential technology.