"A down-and-out so-and-so gets more than he bargained for when a wave of automation sweeps him and his kind out to an oil-black, petroleum-stink sea of indolent excess and the promise of A WORLD WITHOUT WORK"--

"The machines are here. After decades of sci-fi doomsaying and marketing hype, advanced A.I. and automation technologies have leapt out of research labs and Silicon Valley engineering departments and into the center of our lives. Robots once primarily threatened blue-collar manufacturing jobs, but today's machines are being trained to do the work of lawyers, doctors, investment bankers, and other white-collar jobs previously considered safe from automation's...

The smart-machines revolution is reshaping our lives and our societies, but we are not about to be elbowed aside by a rebel army of super-intelligent robots of our own creation. We were using tools before we became Homo Sapiens, and will continue to build and master them, no matter how complicated they become. How we exercise that control - in our private lives, in employment, in politics - and make the best of the wonderful opportunities will determine...

"How will artificial intelligence affect crime, war, justice, jobs, society and our very sense of being human? The rise of AI has the potential to transform our future more than any other technology--and there's nobody better qualified or situated to explore that future than Max Tegmark, an MIT professor who's helped mainstream research on how to keep AI beneficial. How can we grow our prosperity through automation without leaving people lacking income...

A satire on factory life centering on the activities of a couple of ex-prisoners, one of whom, an ambitious crook, becomes the boss of a large factory while the other, a sentimental old tramp, becomes a worker there. Eventually both discover that happiness and peace of mind cannot be bought with money and revert to their former life as vagabonds. This film inspired Charlie Chaplin's Modern times.

"Springing from the febrile mind of mathematician Norbert Wiener amid the devastation of World War II, the cybernetic vision underpinned a host of seductive myths about the future of machines. This vision would radically transform the postwar world, ushering in sweeping cultural change. From the Cold War's monumental SAGE bomber defense system to enhanced humans, Wiener's scheme turned computers from machines of assured destruction into engines of...