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FT editor Roula Khalaf selects her favourite stories on this weekly newsletter.
Burn Book: A Tech Love Story by Kara Swisher (Little, Brown)
As a blogger, columnist and podcaster, Swisher is one of the crucial readable and well-connected critics of our digital age, getting up close and private with the likes of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. The article is heavy on anecdotes and light-weight on evaluation and is “a book-length version of a tweet storm,” the FT review concluded.
The AI mirror: How we will regain our humanity within the age of machine pondering by Shannon Vallor (OUP)
This 12 months has seen a flood of books about AI. Philosopher Vallor's book is one of the crucial thought-provoking. The “utopian priests” who currently rule our tech world are using AI as a method to strengthen flawed human power structures. The great promise of AI, Vallor argues, is to assist reinvent them.
Dark Wire: The Incredible True Story of the Largest Covert Operation of All Time by Joseph Cox (PublicAffairs)
An investigative reporter tells the extraordinary story of how the FBI secretly launched its own encrypted communications app to reveal and trap the world's smugglers, money launderers and assassins. But this true techno-thriller also raises some disturbing questions on privacy, deception and accountability in our digital age.
Tell us what you think that
Are you taking any of those books with you in your summer vacation this 12 months? Which ones? And which titles did we miss? Let us know within the comments below.
The Atomic Man: Understanding Ourselves within the Age of Artificial Intelligence by Neil D. Lawrence (Allen Lane)
A pc science professor at Cambridge and former Amazon director, Lawrence is well versed in each the idea and practice of AI. His lucid book expertly explains the capabilities – and limitations – of machine intelligence. Ignore the naysayers: human intelligence still has rather a lot to supply, he argues.
There isn’t any Ethan: How three women caught America's biggest catfish by Anna Akbari (Grand Central Publishing)
Ethan Schuman is a witty and seductive but somewhat elusive character who captivates three extremely smart women online. But is he really what he seems? In this compelling, real-life exploration of human relationships mediated by technology, Akbari reveals that Ethan is a catfish, or false identity, hiding a shocking reality.
Coming soon to the Summer Books 2024 …
All week, FT writers and critics share their favourites. Some highlights include:
Monday: Business by Andrew Hill
Tuesday: Economics by Martin Wolf
Wednesday: Environment by Pilita Clark
Thursday: Fiction by Laura Battle and Andrew Dickson
Friday: Story by Tony Barber
Saturday: Politics by Gideon Rachman
Sunday: FT journalists select their favourite book of 2024 to this point
