You Are Not A Gadget: A Manifesto

Name: You Are Not A Gadget: A Manifesto
Rating: 3.7142856121063232 (7 reviews)

Jaron Lanier

Jan 2010 · Penguin UK

7 reviews

Ebook

240

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About this ebook

Something went wrong around the start of the 21st century. Individual creativity began to go out of fashion. Music became an endless rehashing of the past. Scientists were in danger of no longer understanding their own research. Indeed, not only was individual creativity old-fashioned but individuals themselves. The crowd was wise. Machines, specifically computers, were no longer tools to be used by human minds - they were better than humans.

Welcome to the world of the digital revolution.

Yet what if, by devaluing individuals, we are deadening creativity, endlessly rehashing past culture, risking weaker design in engineering and science, losing democracy, and reducing development - in every sphere? In You Are Not A Gadget, Jaron Lanier, digital guru, and inventor of Virtual Reality, delivers a searing manifesto in support of the human and reflects on the good and bad developments in design and thought twenty years after the invention of the web. Controversial and fascinating, You Are Not a Gadget is a deeply felt defence of the individual from an author uniquely qualified to comment on the way technology interacts with our culture.

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Ratings and reviews

7 reviews

Ali Chousein

March 2, 2016

It didn't tell me anything new to he honest. The first half of the book is related to its title, but I had hard time following how the second half is related to the subject under discussion.

hi Ij

August 3, 2024

PaLqOl

About the author

Jaron Lanier is a philosopher and computer scientist who has spent his career pushing the transformative power of modern technology to its limits. From coining the term 'Virtual Reality' and creating the world's first immersive avatars to developing cutting-edge medical imaging and surgical techniques, Lanier is one of the premier designers and engineers at work today. Linked with UC Berkeley and Microsoft, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the IEEE in 2009.

A musician with a collection of over 700 instruments, he has been recognised by Encyclopedia Britannica (but certainly not Wikipedia) as one of history's 300 or sogreatest inventors and named one of the top one hundred public intellectuals in the world by Prospect and Foreign Policy.

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