The wires of war: technology and the global struggle for power

Helberg, the former global lead for news policy at Google, debuts with a chilling study of how "techno-totalitarian" regimes are seeking to control the hardware and software of the internet. He documents the spread of fake news by Russia's Internet Research Agency during the 2016 presidential election, and explains how advances in artificial intelligence, data collection, and "synthetic media," or "deepfakes," could make similar propaganda campaigns more disruptive and harder to spot. Even more threatening, in Helberg's view, are China's efforts to gain "back-end" control of the internet by manufacturing cellphones, building 5G networks, and influencing international standards and regulations. He also alleges that the Chinese company that owns TikTok has helped repress the country's Uyghur Muslims, notes that TikTok videos could be used to refine facial recognition algorithms to better surveil non-Asians, and cites researchers who believe the app is collecting an "abnormal" amount of data from its users. Though Helberg's call for democratic nations to form a "compact to resist authoritarian aggression and subversion" is on-point, his argument that breaking up Big Tech would threaten U.S. national security is less persuasive. Still, this is an informative and often harrowing wake-up call. Agent: Suzanne Gluck, WME. (Oct.)

Disturbing news about the wireless world. Helberg, senior adviser at the Stanford University Center on Geopolitics and Technology, spent four years at Google trying to eliminate disinformation from its search engine. In the process, he discovered that world autocracies, led by Russia and China, are conducting a cyberwar with democracies, and winning. In 2016, "on election night, the trolls in St. Petersburg popped champagne, toasted one another, and crowed, 'We made America great.' " Helberg reminds readers that, 20 years ago, pundits proclaimed that the internet's unstoppable freedom of expression would destroy autocracies. Few say that now. The internet has instead accelerated "truth decay," where the click of a mouse supports any outlandish opinion. Those who suspect that illegal immigrants started this summer's forest fires need only search for the terms "forest fires" and "immigrants" to discover that they have plenty of misinformed company. Though the U.S. has largely controlled the internet's expansion, builds most of the storage and transmission infrastructure, and makes the rules, its leadership days are numbered. China's Huawei, by far the world's largest telecom company, dominates 5G, the revolutionary successor to today's network that will vastly accelerate data and phone transmission. Furthermore, Chinese manufacturers make "a staggering 90 percent of the world's mobile phones." In his how-to-fix-it conclusion, the author emphasizes that America's "digital defense of democracy" must become a national security priority. The U.S. must also establish a "Western 5G alternative," massively increase technical aid to developing countries, and promote cyber sanctions to protect the free internet. Helberg is entirely correct in his assessment that this will require overhauling science and engineering education and expanding government-business cooperation, all of which will lead to a modern "Sputnik moment" similar to that following the 1957 Soviet satellite launch, which ended in triumph when the U.S. landed an astronaut on the moon. Unnervingly convincing evidence that time is running out in the "gray war" with the enemies of freedom. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

From world-famous neuroscientist Damasio (it all started with Descartes' Error), Feeling and Knowing relies on recent discoveries in neurobiology, psychology, and AI to explain what consciousness really is (originally scheduled for March 2021). Foster and Frylinck, creators of the documentary phenom My Octopus Teacher—one of Netflix's top 10 films of 2020—swam through South Africa's jaw-droppingly beautiful kelp forests without benefit of wetsuits or oxygen masks (but aided by their favorite octopus) to bring us Underwater Wild, illustrated with over 200 full-color photographs (100,000-copy first printing). A multi-award-winning blogger and founder of Planet Paws, Facebook's most popular pet health page, Habib joins forces with world-renowned veterinarian Becker to explain that dogs suffer from the same chronic illnesses as humans, then introduces a wealth of science-based information ensuring that The Forever Dog in your household will stay alive and well for a long time (150,000-copy first printing). In The Wires of War, Helberg, the former news policy lead at Google, limns the growing cyber conflict piting the West against primarily Russia and China over both software (e.g., news information and social media platforms) and hardware (e.g., cell phones and satellites (100,000-copy first printing). Having grown up in Bangladesh, which she describes as having minimal women's health care, Hossain expected expert maternal care in wealthy America—and nearly died in childbirth; All in Your Head is her impassioned critique of sexism in U.S. health care. Offerman humorously explores the great outdoors as he takes us where The Deer and the Antelope Play.New Yorker staffer Orlean, perhaps best known for The Orchid Thief, here writes On Animals, which explores the animal-human relationship in stories she has written throughout her career. Editor of the New York Times Book Review, Paul offers 100 never-before-published essays (with witty illustrations by Nishant Choksi) to explore 100 Things We've Lost to the Internet, from punctuation and good manners to the ability to entertain ourselves. In The Plant Hunter, enthnobotanist Quave relates her search for plants that can improve or save our lives. Having practiced medicine worldwide, from the Arctic to the Antarctic, Reisman takes us inside The Unseen Body to describe its functions by relating them to the world—the Arctic taught him the value of fat, for instance, while the Himalayas revealed the border between brain and mind (75,000-copy first printing). A prolific author of science titles, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Rhodes profiles Harvard biologist and naturalist O. Wilson—noteworthy for promoting sociobiology and biodiversity—in Scientist. In Being You, the codirector of the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science at the Universitiy of Sussex, explains that we do not view the world objectively but through a series of constant predictions that are rooted in biological mechanisms we can now measure.

Helberg, the former global lead for news policy at Google, debuts with a chilling study of how "techno-totalitarian" regimes are seeking to control the hardware and software of the internet. He documents the spread of fake news by Russia's Internet Research Agency during the 2016 presidential election, and explains how advances in artificial intelligence, data collection, and "synthetic media," or "deepfakes," could make similar propaganda campaigns more disruptive and harder to spot. Even more threatening, in Helberg's view, are China's efforts to gain "back-end" control of the internet by manufacturing cellphones, building 5G networks, and influencing international standards and regulations. He also alleges that the Chinese company that owns TikTok has helped repress the country's Uyghur Muslims, notes that TikTok videos could be used to refine facial recognition algorithms to better surveil non-Asians, and cites researchers who believe the app is collecting an "abnormal" amount of data from its users. Though Helberg's call for democratic nations to form a "compact to resist authoritarian aggression and subversion" is on-point, his argument that breaking up Big Tech would threaten U.S. national security is less persuasive. Still, this is an informative and often harrowing wake-up call. Agent: Suzanne Gluck, WME. (Oct.)