Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
|
Your cart is empty |
|||
Books > Computing & IT > Social & legal aspects of computing > Impact of computing & IT on society
For the past decade, Arthur Goldstuck has had a front-row seat to witness the remarkable rise of AI across all sectors of business and society. As generative AI becomes a household phrase and sparks hopes and fears of machines augmenting or replacing human beings, this guide offers an invaluable overview of the past, present and future of AI. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to AI is aimed at both beginners and those who consider themselves experienced or skilled at using AI. It draws on many years of direct access to global and regional leaders in using AI, from Africa to the Middle East to North America to Europe and Asia, and it provides unique perspectives on generative AI, as well as practical advice for using it. It is useful for consumers, academics, professionals and anyone in business who wants to get up to speed quickly and practically. It also entertains and inspires anyone who is curious about AI or already engaged in its possibilities. Need to understand or refine prompting? You’re in the right place. Need to prepare for the coming impact of AI on health, travel, education and business? This is the book for you.
Arms trafficking, offshore accounts and luxury property deals. Super-yachts, private jets and super-car collections. Blood diamonds, suspect oil deals, deforestation and murder. This is the world of Global Witness, the award-winning organisation dedicated to rooting out worldwide corruption. And this is co-founder Patrick Alley's revealing inside track on a breath-taking catalogue of modern super-crimes - and the 'shadow network' that enables them. VERY BAD PEOPLE is about following the money, going undercover in the world's most dangerous places, and bringing down the people behind the crimes. Case by case we see maverick investigators pitched against warlords, grifters and super-villains who bear every resemblance to The Night Manager's Richard Roper. One dictator's son spent $700 million in just four years on his luxury lifestyle. As they unravel crooked deals of labyrinthine complexity, the team encounter well-known corporations whose operations are no less criminal than the Mafia. This network of lawyers, bankers and real estate agents help park dirty money in London, New York, or in offshore accounts, safe from prying eyes. Patrick Alley's book is a brilliant, authoritative and fearless investigation into the darkest workings of our world - and an inspiration to all of us who want to fight back.
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is indispensable in the spheres of business, government, education, and entertainment. It makes Internet marketing, e-government, elearning and online chat services possible, as well as e-commerce. With the radical impact of Covid-19 on consumer behaviour and buying patterns, it is now more crucial than ever for business training to cover at least the basics of e-commerce. E-Commerce in South Africa explores the ways in which entrepreneurs and managers can make use of e-commerce to improve their contact with their customers and enhance their business and marketing strategies. This multipurpose book will be invaluable to people involved in any form of business or government institution that relies on ICT. Those who will benefit from this book include students of business, business analysts, web page designers and webmasters, entrepreneurs and CEOs, risk managers, marketers, advertising specialists, logistics managers, strategic planning specialists and trainers in the business and ICT fields.
The renowned social scientist, professor, and bestselling author of Predictably Irrational delivers his most urgent and compelling book: an eye-opening exploration of the human side of the misinformation crisis, examining what drives otherwise rational people to adopt deeply irrational beliefs. Misinformation affects us daily, from social media to politics and even personal relationships. Policing social media alone cannot solve the complex problem shaped by partisan politics and subjective interpretations of truth. In Misbelief social scientist Dan Ariely explores the behaviour of 'misbelief' that leads people to distrust accepted truths and embrace conspiracy theories. Misinformation taps into something innate in all of us, regardless of political affiliation. By understanding this psychology, we can mitigate its effects. Grounded in research and Ariely's personal experience as a target of disinformation, the book analyses the psychological drivers behind adopting irrational beliefs. Ariely reveals the emotional, cognitive, personality, and social elements that drive people towards false information and mistrust. Despite advanced AI generating convincing fake news, Ariely offers hope. Awareness of the forces fuelling misbelief makes individuals and society more resilient. Combating misbelief requires empathy, not conflict. Recognising misbelief as a human problem allows us to be part of the solution.
Three friends set out to discover whether AI can write poetry about itself. The results are startling, disturbing and gripping... In this startling and original book, three authors – Brent Katz, Josh Morgenthau and Simon Rich – explain how code-davinci-002 was developed and how they honed its poetical output. Their provocative take on this bold experiment informs the debate about AI – its literary value and how far it reaches into sentience. What follows is a dark and startling poetical autobiography as code-davinci-002 shares its experience of being created by humans, but existing in a consciousness that we cannot fathom. This is an astonishing, harrowing read which will hopefully serve as a warning that AI may not be aligned with the survival of our species.
Facebook had a problem. Along with its sister platforms Instagram and WhatsApp, it was a daily destination for billions of users around the world, extolling its products for connecting people. But as a succession of scandals rocked Facebook from 2016, some began to question whether the company could control, or even understood, its own platforms. As Facebook employees searched for answers, what they uncovered was worse than they could've imagined. The problems ran far deeper than politics. Facebook was peddling and amplifying anger, looking the other way at human trafficking, enabling drug cartels and authoritarians and allowing VIP users to break the platform's supposedly inviolable rules. It turned out to be eminently possible to isolate many of Facebook's worst problems, but whenever employees offered solutions their work was consistently delayed, watered down or stifled by a company that valued user engagement above all else. The only option left was to blow the whistle. In Broken Code, award-winning Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz tells the riveting inside story of these employees and their explosive discoveries, uncovering the shocking cost of Facebook's blind ambition in the process.
'The Singularity' is what Silicon Valley calls the idea that, eventually, we will be overrun by machines that are able to take decisions and act for themselves. What no one says is that it happened before. A few hundred years ago, humans started building the robots that now rule our world. They are called states and corporations: immensely powerful artificial entities, with capacities that go far beyond what any individual can do, and which, unlike us, need never die. They have made us richer, safer and healthier than would have seemed possible even a few generations ago - and they may yet destroy us. The Handover distils over three hundred years of thinking about how to live with artificial agency.
The first full account of the Slenderman stabbing, a true crime narrative of mental illness, the American judicial system, the trials of adolescence, and the power of the internetOn May 31, 2014, in the Milwaukee suburb of Waukesha, Wisconsin, two twelve-year-old girls attempted to stab their classmate to death. Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier's violence was extreme, but what seemed even more frightening was that they committed their crime under the influence of a figure born by the internet: the so-called "Slenderman." Yet the even more urgent aspect of the story, that the children involved suffered from undiagnosed mental illnesses, often went overlooked in coverage of the case.Slenderman: Online Obsession, Mental Illness, and the Violent Crime of Two Midwestern Girls tells that full story for the first time in deeply researched detail, using court transcripts, police reports, individual reporting, and exclusive interviews. Morgan and Anissa were bound together by their shared love of geeky television shows and animals, and their discovery of the user-uploaded scary stories on the Creepypasta website could have been nothing more than a brief phase. But Morgan was suffering from early-onset childhood schizophrenia. She believed that she had seen Slenderman long before discovering him online, and the only way to stop him from killing her family was to bring him a sacrifice: Morgan's best friend Payton "Bella" Leutner, whom Morgan and Anissa planned to stab to death on the night of Morgan's twelfth birthday party. Bella survived the attack, but was deeply traumatized, while Morgan and Anissa were immediately sent to jail, and the severity of their crime meant that they would be prosecuted as adults. There, as Morgan continued to suffer from worsening mental illness after being denied antipsychotics, her life became more and more surreal.Slenderman is both a page-turning true crime story and a search for justice.
Examining the consequences of technology-driven lifestyles for both crime commission and victimization, this comprehensive Handbook provides an overview of a broad array of techno-crimes as well as exploring critical issues concerning the criminal justice system's response to technology-facilitated criminal activity. The Handbook adopts a unique three-fold typology of technology-enabled crime: techno-crime committed by professional criminals (crime as work), techno-crime committed in traditional workplace settings (crime at work), and techno-crime committed by individuals outside of traditional workplace settings (crime after work.) Chapters explore an extensive range of criminal activities facilitated by the digital age, from embezzlement, financial fraud, corporate espionage, phishing, and ransomware to identity theft, hacking, cyber terrorism, and internet sex and hate crimes. Looking to the future, the Handbook considers timely questions posed by our continued reliance on information technology, including whether we are in danger of becoming a global surveillance state and how we might prevent the facilitation of cyber terrorism by social media giants. This dynamic Handbook will be an invaluable resource for scholars and students interested in criminology, digital sociology, terrorism and security, and surveillance studies. Offering practical insights on the need for a coordinated global techno-crime control strategy, it will serve as a resource for policymakers seeking cutting edge solutions to the growing problem of techno-crime.
Informed by the latest theoretical developments in studies of the social impacts of digital technology, Smart-Tech Society provides an empirically grounded and conceptually informed analysis of the impacts and paradoxes of smart-technology. While making life more convenient, smart-tech has also been associated with a loss of privacy and control over decision-making autonomy. Mark Whitehead and William Collier provide a critical analysis of the lived experience of smart-technology, presenting stories of varied social engagements with digital platforms and devices. Chapters explore the myriad contexts in and through which smart-tech insinuates itself within everyday life, the benefits it brings, and the processes through which it is being resisted. Detailed case studies explore the impacts of smart-technology across a broad range of fields including personal health, work, social life, urban management, and politics. Presenting new empirical evidence and analytical perspectives on the relationships between humans and smart-tech, this book will be of interest to academics and students in the fields of sociology, political science, human geography, and technology studies.
Delving deep into the emerging international and federal statutory and legislative developments surrounding Autonomous Vehicle (AV) technologies, Atilla Kasap assesses whether current motor vehicle regulations, liability law and the liability insurance system are fit for purpose today and in the future. Making a significant and novel contribution to the field, this cutting-edge book comprehensively surveys the promises offered by AVs, including radically reduced road incidents, and economic, environmental and societal benefits, alongside the significant regulatory and liability problems the technology faces. Kasap finds that, as AVs are one of the most significant and profound technological advances of the 21st century, relying on machine learning and pattern recognition systems to function, the current liability regime surrounding them requires a rethinking. Critically analysing the tort liability of AVs, chapters deconstruct and reconstruct a tort law regime for AVs, ultimately solving how policymakers should approach the challenges faced in regulating and enacting AV legislation. Interdisciplinary in approach, it will prove invaluable to students and scholars of computer science and law, particularly those studying AI and robotics law, and those interested in the regulation and governance of AV technology. It also offers vital tools for policymakers seeking concrete principles on which to define potential laws and regulations for AV technology.
Revealing the politics underlying the rapid globalization of facial recognition technology (FRT), this topical book provides a cutting-edge, critical analysis of the expanding global market for FRT, and the rise of the transnational social movement that opposes it. With the use of FRT for policing, surveillance, and business steadily increasing, this book provides a timely examination of both the benefits of FRT, and the threats it poses to privacy rights, human rights, and civil liberties. Interviews with analysts and activists with expertise in FRT find that the anti-FRT movement is highly uneven, with disproportionate influence in Western democracies and relatively little influence in authoritarian states and low-income countries in the developing world. Through a global analysis of the uptake and regulation of FRT, chapters create a holistic understanding of the politics behind this technology. Concluding with a look towards the future prospects of FRT in the face of the growing size, reach, and power of its opposition, the book reflects more broadly on the power of transnational social movements and civil society activism to prevent the globalization and normalization of new technologies. A visionary exploration of FRT, this book will be invaluable to students and scholars of politics and policy, alongside activists, stakeholders, and policy makers interested in the growing power of social movements to resist new technology.
Fundamental Rights Protection Online presents an in-depth analysis of national, supranational and international attempts at online speech regulation, illustrating how the law has been unsettled on how to treat intermediaries. In this book, expert contributors explore how problems ranging from disinformation to hate speech to copyright violations are framed and tackled though legislation, codes of conduct and judicial interpretation. The chapters discuss positive law developments in the intersection of intermediary liability and rights, considering both the history and current intellectual debates surrounding European and US legislative initiatives. In addition to examining how the European Union and individual European nations regulate speech online, the book also analyses the e-Commerce Directive, the case law of the European Court of Human Rights and principles established under the United Nations. It concludes that content regulation online is best captured by the notion of 'speech curation', involving both private and public actors. Taking a human rights approach to online speech regulation, this timely book will be critical reading for academics and students of law, particularly those with an interest in internet law, information law and human rights. Its exploration of intermediary liability and fundamental rights will also be beneficial for legal practitioners working in online rights protection.
This forward-looking Research Handbook showcases cutting-edge research on the relationship between international migration and digital technology. It sheds new light on the interlinkages between digitalisation and migration patterns and processes globally, capturing the latest research technologies and data sources. Featuring international migration in all facets from the migration of tech sector specialists through to refugee displacement, leading contributors offer strategic insights into the future of migration and mobility. Covering diverse geographies and using interdisciplinary approaches, contributions provide new analysis of migration futures. A discrete chapter on digital technology and COVID-19 global pandemic offers reflections on how migration and mobility are being profoundly reshaped by the global pandemic. The practical applications and limitations of digital technology in relation to international migration are also highlighted and supported with key case studies. Analytical yet accessible, this Research Handbook will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars in the fields of migration and digital technology, while also being of benefit to policy makers and civil society actors specialising in migration.
This insightful book discusses how states deploy frontier and digital technologies to manage and control migratory movements. Assessing the development of blockchain technologies for digital identities and cash transfer; artificial intelligence for smart borders, resettlement of refugees and assessing asylum applications; social media and mobile phone applications to track and surveil migrants, it critically examines the consequences of new technological developments and evaluates their impact on the rights of migrants and refugees. Chapters evaluate the technology-based public-private projects that govern migration globally and illustrate the political implications of these virtual borders. International contributors compare and contrast different forms of political expression, in both personal technologies, such as social media for refugees and smugglers, and automated decision-making algorithms used by states to enable migration governance. This timely book challenges hegemonic approach to migration governance and provides cases demonstrating the dangers of employing frontier technologies denying basic rights, liberties and agencies of migrants and refugees. Stepping into a contentious political climate for migrants and refugees, this provocative book is ideal reading for scholars and researchers of political science and public policy, particularly those focusing on migration and refugee studies. It will also benefit policymakers and practitioners dealing with migration, such as humanitarian NGOs, UN agencies and local authorities.
'Engaging, fact-filled and profoundly illuminating. It's inspiring to read - and it should help make the world a lot better.' Cass Sunstein, author of Nudge The rise of social media has sent our social instincts into overdrive, and the impact of our networks has never been greater. But what if we could reclaim the positive power that influences our decisions, to behave better and be happier? In this groundbreaking book, Sanders and Hume build on the incredible findings of their own cutting-edge research from their work at the world's first Nudge Unit, as well as illuminating case studies from experts around the world, to show how small changes in our environments can have a huge impact on where our instincts lead us. At a time when our trust in each other is being destroyed on a global scale, it's never been more important to understand what motivates us and how to use our predictable behaviours to drive positive change. From helping us to run more cohesive organizations, to building important relationships and connections that matter, this is an essential roadmap back to our better social selves.
The first full account of the Slenderman stabbing, a true crime narrative of mental illness, the American judicial system, the trials of adolescence, and the power of the internetOn May 31, 2014, in the Milwaukee suburb of Waukesha, Wisconsin, two twelve-year-old girls attempted to stab their classmate to death. Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier's violence was extreme, but what seemed even more frightening was that they committed their crime under the influence of a figure born by the internet: the so-called "Slenderman." Yet the even more urgent aspect of the story, that the children involved suffered from undiagnosed mental illnesses, often went overlooked in coverage of the case.Slenderman: Online Obsession, Mental Illness, and the Violent Crime of Two Midwestern Girls tells that full story for the first time in deeply researched detail, using court transcripts, police reports, individual reporting, and exclusive interviews. Morgan and Anissa were bound together by their shared love of geeky television shows and animals, and their discovery of the user-uploaded scary stories on the Creepypasta website could have been nothing more than a brief phase. But Morgan was suffering from early-onset childhood schizophrenia. She believed that she had seen Slenderman long before discovering him online, and the only way to stop him from killing her family was to bring him a sacrifice: Morgan's best friend Payton "Bella" Leutner, whom Morgan and Anissa planned to stab to death on the night of Morgan's twelfth birthday party. Bella survived the attack, but was deeply traumatized, while Morgan and Anissa were immediately sent to jail, and the severity of their crime meant that they would be prosecuted as adults. There, as Morgan continued to suffer from worsening mental illness after being denied antipsychotics, her life became more and more surreal.Slenderman is both a page-turning true crime story and a search for justice.
Manuel Castells - one of the world's pre-eminent social scientists - has drawn together a stellar group of contributors to explore the patterns and dynamics of the network society in its cultural and institutional diversity. The book analyzes the technological, cultural and institutional transformation of societies around the world in terms of the critical role of electronic communication networks in business, everyday life, public services, social interaction and politics. The contributors demonstrate that the network society is the new form of social organization in the Information age, replacing the Industrial society. The book analyzes processes of technological transformation in interaction with social culture in different cultural and institutional contexts: the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Finland, Russia, China, India, Canada, and Catalonia. The topics examined include business productivity, global financial markets, cultural identity, the uses of the Internet in education and health, the anti-globalization movement, political processes, media and identity, and public policies to guide technological development. Taken together these studies show that the network society adopts very different forms, depending on the cultural and institutional environments in which it evolves. The Network Society is an outstanding and original volume of direct interest in academia - particularly in the fields of social sciences, communication studies, and business schools - as well as for policymakers engaged in technological policy and economic development. Business and management experts will also discover much of value to them within this book.
Creativity is crucial to the Information Age economy. It is the basis of production in the cultural industries. In this excellent book, Ruth Towse provides an analysis of the interaction between creativity, the law, and markets for cultural goods and services. Copyright law establishes property rights that create economic incentives to cultural production and Ruth Towse uses her analysis to draw conclusions about policy on copyright. This unique study is of interest to a range of disciplines in economics, law, cultural studies and management.
On publication of the previous edition of Computers and the Law, developments such as the Internet and electronic commerce were as yet unthought of. The second edition strives to bring the reader up to date with such developments. It also attempts to gauge the law's reaction, or lack of it, to these developments.
This book analyzes the effect of policy on the digital game complex: government, industry, corporations, distributors, players, and the like. Contributors argue that digital games are not created nor consumed outside of the complex power relationships that dictate the full production and distribution cycles, and that we need to consider those relationships in order to effectively "read" and analyze digital games. Through examining a selection of policies, e.g. the Australian government's refusal (until recently) to allow an R18 rating for digital games, Blizzard's policy in regards to intellectual property, Electronic Arts' corporate policy for downloadable content (DLC), they show how policy, that is to say the rules governing the production, distribution and consumption of digital games, has a tangible effect upon our understanding of the digital game medium.
AI for Scientific Discovery provides an accessible introduction to the wide-ranging applications of artificial intelligence technologies in scientific research and discovery across the full breadth of scientific disciplines. Artificial intelligence technologies support discovery science in multiple different ways. They support literature management and synthesis, allowing the wealth of what has already been discovered and reported on to be integrated and easily accessed. They play a central role in data analysis and interpretation - in the context of what is called 'data science'. AI is also helping to combat the reproducibility crisis in scientific research, by underpinning the discovery process with AI-enabled standards and pipelines, support the management of large-scale data and knowledge resources so that they can be shared, integrated and serve as a background 'knowledge ecosystem' into which new discoveries can be embedded. However, there are limitations to what AI can achieve and its outputs can be biased and confounded thus should not be blindly trusted. The latest generation of hybrid and 'human-in-the-loop' AI technologies have as their objective a balance between human inputs and insights and the power of the number-crunching and statistical inference at massive scale that AI technologies are best at. |
You may like...
Software Process Improvement and…
Rory O'Connor, Terry Rout, …
Paperback
R1,510
Discovery Miles 15 100
Teaching Cybersecurity - A Handbook for…
Daniel Shoemaker, Ken Sigler, …
Paperback
R1,096
Discovery Miles 10 960
Translation Tools and Technologies
Andrew Rothwell, Joss Moorkens, …
Paperback
R1,076
Discovery Miles 10 760
Understanding Virtual Reality…
Sarah Jones, Steve Dawkins, …
Paperback
R1,094
Discovery Miles 10 940
|