Wise Animals

A brilliantly original exploration of humanity's intimate relationship with technology, from the emergence of our species to the advent of AI and beyond.

Wise Animals explores the history of our relationship with technology, and our deep involvement with our creations from the first use of tools and the taming of fire, via the invention of reading and printing, to the development of the computer, the creation of the internet and the emergence of AI. Human children know no more of modern technology than their ancestors did of older technologies thousands of years ago, and develop in relation to the technologies of their time. We co-evolve with technology as individuals as we have as a species over thousands of years. Rather than see technology as a threat, this deeply humanist contribution to the debate proposes that we are neither masters nor victims of our technologies. They are part of who we are, and our future - and theirs - is in our hands.

Auteur

Tom Chatfield is a British writer, broadcaster and tech philosopher. His books exploring digital culture - most recently Live This Book! (Penguin), How To Thrive in the Digital Age (Pan Macmillan) and Critical Thinking (SAGE Publishing), researched as a Visiting Associate at the Oxford Internet Institute - are published in over thirty languages. His first novel, This is Gomorrah (Hodder), was a Sunday Times thriller of the month, shortlisted for the 2020 CWA Steel Dagger and won France's Prix Douglas Kennedy. He lives in Kent.

Résumé

'Powerful, profound and completely engrossing, this is a multitudinous meditation on not only technology but also history, culture, ideas, ethics, psychology and, above all, what it means to be human.' Michael Bhaskar, co-author of The Coming Wave

Wise Animals explores the history of our relationship with technology, and our deep involvement with our creations from the first use of tools and the taming of fire, via the invention of reading and printing, to the development of the computer, the creation of the internet and the emergence of AI.

Human children know no more of modern technology than their ancestors did of older technologies thousands of years ago, and develop in relation to the technologies of their time. We co-evolve with technology as individuals as we have as a species over thousands of years.

Rather than see technology as a threat, this deeply humanist contribution to the debate proposes that we are neither masters nor victims of our technologies. They are part of who we are, and our future and theirs is in our hands.