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Braille (Contracted), Electronic braille (Contracted), DAISY Audio (Direct to Player), DAISY Audio (Zip), DAISY text (Direct to player), DAISY text (Zip), Word (Zip), ePub (Zip)
Environment, Science and technology
Synthetic audio, Automated braille
A "soulful tribute" (New York Times) that shows how rethinking our relationships with other species can help us reimagine the…
future of humankind In the woodlands of sub-Saharan Africa, sometime deep in our species&’ past, something strange happened: a bird called out, not to warn others of human presence, but to call attention to herself. Having found a beehive, that bird—a honeyguide—sought human aid to break in. The behavior can seem almost miraculous: How would a bird come to think that people could help her? Isn&’t life simply bloodier than that? As Rob Dunn argues in The Call of the Honeyguide, it isn&’t. Nature is red in tooth and claw, but in equal measure, life works together. Cells host even smaller life, wrapped in a web of mutual interdependence. Ants might go to war, but they also tend fungi, aphids, and even trees. And we humans work not just with honeyguides but with yeast, crops, and pets. Ecologists call these beneficial relationships mutualisms. And they might be the most important forces in the evolution of life. We humans often act as though we are all alone, independent from the rest of life. As The Call of the Honeyguide shows, we are not. It is a call to action for a more beneficent, less lonely future.
DAISY Audio (Direct to Player), DAISY Audio (Zip)
Science and technology
Human-narrated audio
'I wish this book had been published five hundred years ago and been compulsory reading ever since' Jay Griffiths, author…
of How Animals Heal Us'A crucial and transformative read' Charles Foster, author of Being a Beast'Timely, intelligent and entertaining' Tristan Gooley, author of How to Read a Tree'Will leave you in awe' Justin Gregg, author of If Nietzsche Were A NarwhalMost people are certain that humans are the most intelligent, sophisticated, successful species on earth. But what if we're wrong? And what if our arrogant human exceptionalism is leading us to exploit the earth at the expense of other species - and destroy our own world in the process?In The Arrogant Ape, leading primatologist Christine Webb challenges our belief in human superiority by revealing underappreciated wonders of nonhuman life - from the language of songbirds and prairie dogs, to the cultures of chimpanzees and reef fishes, to the acumen of plants and fungi. She shows how human exceptionalism has even crept into the sciences, distorting how we study and understand other species. With fresh research into the rich social, emotional and cognitive lives of animals, and compelling stories from all over the world, The Arrogant Ape demonstrates how our belief in our own importance is directly linked to some of the greatest threats against us and our environment - and offers a hopeful, inspiring way forwards.
Braille (Contracted), Electronic braille (Contracted), DAISY Audio (Direct to Player), DAISY Audio (Zip), DAISY text (Direct to player), DAISY text (Zip), Word (Zip), ePub (Zip)
Science and technology
Synthetic audio, Automated braille
'I wish this book had been published five hundred years ago and been compulsory reading ever since' Jay Griffiths, author…
of How Animals Heal Us'A crucial and transformative read' Charles Foster, author of Being a Beast'Timely, intelligent and entertaining' Tristan Gooley, author of How to Read a Tree'Will leave you in awe' Justin Gregg, author of If Nietzsche Were A NarwhalMost people are certain that humans are the most intelligent, sophisticated, successful species on earth. But what if we're wrong? And what if our arrogant human exceptionalism is leading us to exploit the earth at the expense of other species - and destroy our own world in the process?In The Arrogant Ape, leading primatologist Christine Webb challenges our belief in human superiority by revealing underappreciated wonders of nonhuman life - from the language of songbirds and prairie dogs, to the cultures of chimpanzees and reef fishes, to the acumen of plants and fungi. She shows how human exceptionalism has even crept into the sciences, distorting how we study and understand other species. With fresh research into the rich social, emotional and cognitive lives of animals, and compelling stories from all over the world, The Arrogant Ape demonstrates how our belief in our own importance is directly linked to some of the greatest threats against us and our environment - and offers a hopeful, inspiring way forwards.
Braille (Contracted), Electronic braille (Contracted), DAISY Audio (Direct to Player), DAISY Audio (Zip), DAISY text (Direct to player), DAISY text (Zip), Word (Zip), ePub (Zip)
Economics, Politics and government, Science and technology
Synthetic audio, Automated braille
A New York Times Notable Book • Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award • An Instant New York…
Times Bestseller • Named a Best Book of the Year by Smithsonian and Scientific American&“A bestselling page-turner that has made waves not just in Silicon Valley but around the world . . . With Empire of AI, Hao is fundamentally shaping many people&’s perceptions and understanding of the company at the center of the AI revolution.&” —TIME Magazine, &“TIME100 AI 2025&”&“Excellent and deeply reported.&” —Tim Wu, The New York Times&“Startling and intensely researched . . . an essential account of how OpenAI and ChatGPT came to be and the catastrophic places they will likely take us.&” —VultureFrom a brilliant longtime AI insider with intimate access to the world of Sam Altman's OpenAI from the beginning, an eye-opening account of arguably the most fateful tech arms race in history, reshaping the planet in real time, from the cockpit of the company that is driving the frenzyWhen AI expert and investigative journalist Karen Hao first began covering OpenAI in 2019, she thought they were the good guys. Founded as a nonprofit with safety enshrined as its core mission, the organization was meant, its leader Sam Altman told us, to act as a check against more purely mercantile, and potentially dangerous, forces. What could go wrong?Over time, Hao began to wrestle ever more deeply with that question. Increasingly, she realized that the core truth of this massively disruptive sector is that its vision of success requires an almost unprecedented amount of resources: the &“compute&” power of high-end chips and the processing capacity to create massive large language models, the sheer volume of data that needs to be amassed at scale, the humans &“cleaning up&” that data for sweatshop wages throughout the Global South, and a truly alarming spike in the usage of energy and water underlying it all. The truth is that we have entered a new and ominous age of empire: only a small handful of globally scaled companies can even enter the field of play. At the head of the pack with its ChatGPT breakthrough, how would OpenAI resist such temptations?Spoiler alert: it didn&’t. Armed with Microsoft&’s billions, OpenAI is setting a breakneck pace, chased by a small group of the most valuable companies in human history—toward what end, not even they can define. All this time, Hao has maintained her deep sourcing within the company and the industry, and so she was in intimate contact with the story that shocked the entire tech industry—Altman&’s sudden firing and triumphant return. The behind-the-scenes story of what happened, told here in full for the first time, is revelatory of who the people controlling this technology really are. But this isn&’t just the story of a single company, however fascinating it is. The g forces pressing down on the people of OpenAI are deforming the judgment of everyone else too—as such forces do. Naked power finds the ideology to cloak itself; no one thinks they&’re the bad guy. But in the meantime, as Hao shows through intrepid reporting on the ground around the world, the enormous wheels of extraction grind on. By drawing on the viewpoints of Silicon Valley engineers, Kenyan data laborers, and Chilean water activists, Hao presents the fullest picture of AI and its impact we&’ve seen to date, alongside a trenchant analysis of where things are headed. An astonishing eyewitness view from both up in the command capsule of the new economy and down where the real suffering happens, Empire of AI pierces the veil of the industry defining our era.