Name: Lynn's review of To Be a Machine by Mark O'Connell
Item: To Be a Machine
Rating: 4
Author: Lynn

Mark O'Connell

"A globe-spanning investigation into the Transhumanist movement, considering the tech billionaires, scientific luminaries, and DIY body-hackers attempting to prolong, improve, and ultimately transcend the limits of human life"--

Adventures Among Cyborgs, Utopians, Hackers, and the Futurists Solving the Modest Problem of Death

To Be a Machine

WINNER OF THE WELLCOME BOOK PRIZE 2018 Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2017 A stunning new non-fiction voice tackles an urgent question... what next for mankind? 'Troubling and humorous, this is one of my current give-it-to-everyone books - I buy six copies at a time' Jeanette Winterson

Sebastian Stockmarr

Lynn

Meet the visionaries, billionaires, professors, and programmers who are using groundbreaking technology to push the limits of the human body--our senses, intelligence, and our lifespans Once relegated to the fringes of society, transhumanism (the use of technology to enhance human intellectual and physical capability) is now poised to enter our cultural mainstream. It has found adherents in Silicon Valley billionaires Ray Kurzweil and Peter Diamandis. Google has entered the picture, establishing a bio-tech subsidiary aimed at solving the problem of aging. In To Be a Machine, journalist Mark O'Connell takes a headlong dive into this burgeoning movement. He travels to the laboratories, conferences, and basements of today's foremost transhumanists, where he's presented with the staggering possibilities and moral quandaries of new technologies like mind uploading, artificial superintelligence, cryonics, and device implants. A contributor to Slate, The New Yorker, and The New York Times Magazine, O'Connell serves as a sharp and lively guide to the outer limits of technology in the twenty first century. In investigating what it means to be a machine, he offers a surprising, singular meditation on what it means to be human.

Ryan LaFerney

To Be a Machine, by Mark O’Connell, won the 2018 Wellcome Book Prize. It introduces the reader to transhumanism, a movement that aims, by various means, to allow humans to defeat the problem of aging and thereby death. The transhumanist really believes we can transcend the flesh via technology and solve death. And while, as a Christian, I find this movement to be morally repugnant, I also find it fascinating for some strange reason (maybe it is the sci-fi nerd in me?). Mark O’Connell, makes a journalistic inquiry into the current form of this movement and explores ideas as radical as uploading of minds in computers, post-death cryonic suspension of human bodies to be revived later by some yet-to-be developed advanced technology, cyborgs, technological singularity etc. The book also discusses the ethical questions posed by these technologies in a manner that is accessible to the everyday reader. 

 This is not a book that champions the transhumanist movement but rather explores it with a journalistic skepticism. And I happen to share O'Connell's bemused skepticism of singularitarians and transhumanists.

Mark O'Connell presents us with an exploration of transhumanism: its philosophical and scientific roots, its key players and possible futures. From charismatic techies seeking to enhance the body to immortalists who believe in the possibility of 'solving' death; from computer programmers quietly re-designing the world to vast competitive robotics conventions. O'Connell paints a vivid portrait of an international movement driven by strange and frequently disturbing ideas and practices, but whose obsession with transcending human limitations can be seen as a kind of cultural microcosm, a radical intensification of our broader faith in the power of technology as an engine of human progress.

I think i’ll stick to my deathism ways for a while longer. But this book was enlightening in every sense of the word. Combine that with the light-hearted and properly comedic way of Irish writing, and you’ve got yourself a read-worthy novel.

Toby Fehily

Molly Bridge

“This gonzo-journalistic exploration of the Silicon Valley techno-utopians’ pursuit of escaping mortality is a breezy romp full of colorful characters.” —New York Times Book Review (Editor's Choice) Transhumanism is a movement pushing the limits of our bodies—our capabilities, intelligence, and lifespans—in the hopes that, through technology, we can become something better than ourselves. It has found support among Silicon Valley billionaires and some of the world’s biggest businesses. In To Be a Machine, journalist Mark O'Connell explores the staggering possibilities and moral quandaries that present themselves when you of think of your body as a device. He visits the world's foremost cryonics facility to witness how some have chosen to forestall death. He discovers an underground collective of biohackers, implanting electronics under their skin to enhance their senses. He meets a team of scientists urgently investigating how to protect mankind from artificial superintelligence. Where is our obsession with technology leading us? What does the rise of AI mean not just for our offices and homes, but for our humanity? Could the technologies we create to help us eventually bring us to harm? Addressing these questions, O'Connell presents a profound, provocative, often laugh-out-loud-funny look at an influential movement. In investigating what it means to be a machine, he offers a surprising meditation on what it means to be human.

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To Be a Machine by Mark O'Connell

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To Be a Machine by Mark O'Connell