Here is Uncle Scott's most recent stuff...

Who We Were, and Who We Are,

and Who We Can Become

Millions of people around the world imagine a humanist future - an era when humanity achieves full maturity, eschewing inequality, racism, misogyny, and war, in favor of cooperation and empathy and justice for all.Is such a destiny possible? Some believe that our violent and selfish impulses are built into our genes, and will always be with us - that a humanist destiny is not only unlikely but impossible.The thesis of this book is that a humanist future is not only possible but inevitable, that we can know with confidence that we have the potential to overcome our current dysfunction, because we've already achieved it - in our distant past...

The Children of Babel: Essays on the Inherent Nature of Artificial Intelligence and Consciousness

Can machines be intelligent? Yes, that seems settled; but can machines be conscious? That's not nearly as clear. The dream of machines that not only think, but feel and experience consciousness as humans do has been a canvas of fantasists, a goal of technologists and a conundrum to philosophers for decades. Here in this brief collection are discussions covering a number of culturally prominent examples (such as HAL 9000), well-known intellectual arguments (the Chinese Room and Nagel's Bat), and famous expositions of the problem (the Tortoise and Achilles, from Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach). The discussions are nested within the mathematical wonder of pi, and framed in Borges' fantastic Library of Babel - ensuring a reading experience that is as entertaining as it is thought-provoking.

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Buy HAL 9000: An Unauthorized Biography

HAL 9000: An Unauthorized Biography

"The Robinson Biography, written as it was in the mid-21st century (and thankfully published on paper, we estimate around 2080-90) notably references, and thereby confirms, a number of sources thought by many to be apocryphal: the original documentaries of HAL 9000, including the two scholarly Clarke accounts, and the two visual summaries by Kubrick and Hyams. Several other synoptic accounts are also referenced. In addition, we find the names Turing, Asimov, Hofstadter, all known elsewhere in the surviving pre-Blink record; and the names Forster, Chandra, and Langley, though confined to Hal lore, are encouragingly redundant. All of this in itself is a boon, and we shall be decades poring over it, for that reason alone." Proceedings of the 99th International Congress, of Hybrid Minds, Historical Conclave Edinburgh, Scotland 20 Oct 2391

Trek fans the world over know the following names: Nomad... M-5... Landru... V'Ger... Finnegan... and, of course, Data. Star Trek has given the science fiction universe some of its most interesting and provocative AIs and androids, and with them an insightful flow of concepts to consider as AI makes its way into the real world. Now that we've begun talking to machines and are beginning to turn decisions over to them, it's a great time to look at the imagined technology of the far future and consider what might actually be possible in the near future, in light of the AI revolution that's now underway. Will machines think for themselves, as V'Ger did? Will they become self-aware, as Data was? Will they make war on us, in the footsteps of Landru and Vaal? Will we consult with them, as Voyager's crew did the EMH, or follow Tasha Yar's lead and take them to bed? These and many other questions are answered in this snackable volume, which blends Trek fan service with the nuts and bolts of real AI, the study of consciousness, and the philosophy of mind. The AIs and androids considered cover the full range of the Trek canon, including the AI Control from Star Trek: Discovery and Data's daughter, the android Soji from Star Trek: Picard.

The AIs and Androids of STAR TREK

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The Progressive Beatles

If the Beatles hadn’t written and recorded "A Day in the Life", "I Am the Walrus", "Strawberry Fields Forever", "Blue Jay Way", "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and other proto-progressive songs - if they'd never cobbled together "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite", applied Western tuning to a sitar on "Norwegian Wood", flipped George's guitar on "I'm Only Sleeping", or pieced together the Side Two medley on Abbey Road - then the trails of Yes, Genesis, Jethro Tull, Pink Floyd, Kansas, ELP and so many others might never have been blazed – or, at least, would have taken far longer to discover. Progressive rock owes everything to the Beatles - everything that defines it began with the Fab Four. There is no Fragile, no Thick as a Brick, no Dark Side of the Moon in the Beatles canon, no “Tarkus”, no “Heart of the Sunrise”, no “Firth of Fifth” - but without the works described in this book, we’d never have had all those wonderful albums and songs...

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AI in Sci-Fi: Fictional Artificial Minds and the Real World Awaiting Them

Star Trek's Cmdr. Data... Alien's Ash and Bishop... Skynet and the Terminator... the androids of Westworld... Ex Machina's Eva, the Stepford Wives - and the granddaddy of them all, HAL 9000... These and other famous artificial minds are at the heart of this exploration of AI and the possibility of machine consciousness, suggesting the directions that the evolution of the technology might take. How great is the gap between the AI of film and television and what's emerging in the world today? Will that gap be closed at some point? Will we ever see androids who think and feel and experience the world as we do? Scott Robinson, a social scientist who implements AI and augmented intelligence systems in the corporate world, takes on these questions and others in these surveys of AI in fiction and the real world: What would it take to create a true artificial mind, if it's even possible? What are the building blocks of consciousness, and how could they be recreated in a machine? What can human society learn from the AI of fiction? And if we can actually build conscious machines - should we? With fan service to spare, AI in Sci-Fi tours the science fiction universe for its fascinating artificial life, reaching into the imagination for inspirations that will guide our path tomorrow, as human and machine enter into permanent partnership...

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To the Toppermost of the Poppermost!

When they were together, the Beatles put out 27 #1 hit singles - a record that remains unbroken, 50 years later. Astonishingly, they proceeded to accumulate 20 more as solo artists, a feat likewise never duplicated. All 47 songs are documented in this accessible, trivia-filled compendium, a must-have for lovers of the band's timeless music.

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