Artificial Intelligence Books

This is a basic introduction to InfoVis, covering topics from human perception to improving the decision-making processes with visualizations. It is worth having if you are in the field or are serious about improving your visualizations.

Some of the negative comments in reviews must refer to the first edition. My second edition has (some) color images as appropriate throughout the book. There are still a few errors, but not a large number. There are definitely a few low quality examples.

The book gives sme guidleines (supported by research) but it won't be suitable for practioners but as a text book of no very good use for an information visualization course. It was tedious to have it as our text book I don't know if this is what I think or is it the actual case.

WOW. This guy did his homework! Ware covers the basics and more advanced topics. I felt he goes beyond most books on this subject by giving his suggestions and not just stating facts.

This is the best single volume book on the subject of information visualisation that I've read. Sure, there are other very nice books on diagrams, maps, data analysis, modelling and scientific visualisation. However, none of them have the scope of this book.

And therein lies the problem. For a single volume book Ware's effort tries to cover too much and some of the chapters are quite weak (chapter 0 and 10). Also, the fact that it was written by a psychologist shows in a good and bad way: human visual cognition is correctly the foundation upon which to build visualisation. Unfortunately the examples and the ideas for implementation are often lacking or poor in quality.

The first edition also has typesetting errors, so be sure to get the second edition.

All in all, it's still a book worth getting if you're in any serious way connected with the practise of visualisation. However, don't expect it to be the bible of the field, as such a thing does not exist (yet).

Ware's book provides a technically accurate and well-written overview of the gamut of issues pertaining to information visualization -- from basic visual anatomy and physiology to techniques for creating effective displays from multidimensional data.

Yes, it's "introductory" in nature, but it's the most comprehensive introduction I've seen to this complex and emerging field. It would make an excellent reference or textbook.

The 5-star content gets 4 stars because of the book's numerous editorial flaws. For example, several illustrations in the text reference color plate images that simply don't exist. And at least a half-dozen works cited in the text don't appear on the reference list. All-in-all, a rather slipshod editing job.

This was the first real book I read on the topic of Artificial Intelligence, and I must say...the best. This books topics are not outdated at all, it completely applys to current studies. This is an amazing book for a good introduction into the topic, and mainly covers the philosophical side of creating intelligent and conscious artificial beings; explaining all sides of the issue in a incredibly information pakced and detailed cartoon format. A very good book, after reading it twice I finally understood the underlying principles of AI. If your interested in Ai I'd also recommend the other Introducing book on Consciousness, which gives a detailed description into the materialist, dualist, and mysterian views on consciousness and the formation of a theory of conscioussness, whos philosopical ideas is realted to AI.

This book is not a technical introduction to AI. The book is targeted at people with no technical or computing expertise, and does not have enough depth to be of value to anyone interested in AI from a technical angle.

That said, it would be great as an introduction to someone like my wife (a nurse).

I wish I had read the reviews on this book before purchasing it, but I did get to look at the cool drawings in this one!

This book is intended for a young audience... Avoid buying it in case you take the subject seriously. On the other hand, if you just want to have an overall idea of what IA is, it's ok.

This is a very light weight read on the subject that discusses the history of the slow and not certain advancement of the concept of what Artificial Intelligence is or will be.

As a person that is new to the subject I enjoyed the format -- lots of illustrations.

I was amazed to learn how inter-disciplinary the topic is. The book draws from the perspectives of psychology, mathematics, computer science, biology, and philosophy. Before starting the book, I was personally hoping to get an introduction to computer science tools (neural networks, Bayesian network etc.) that make up modern AI. However, I believe I am better off for starting with a book that helped me better understand that there is more to AI than computer science.

Coming from a Computer Science background, but only having been exposed to AI via science fiction, the most interesting thing I learned while reading Introducing Artificial Intelligence was the distinction between the two major schools of thought in AI research: "strong AI," or those who believe machines can be made to think like humans or better, and "weak AI," those who seek further knowledge about natural intelligence through the use of artificial simulations of intelligence, but don't seek to create sentient thought in machines. Based solely on the descriptions of artificial intelligence that I've encountered in popular culture, it's never explicitly stated but always tacitly assumed that with sufficiently advanced technology, machines can be made to think. As this book discusses, this is not a universally acknowledged truth, but rather there is much disagreement among AI scientists as to whether this feat is even possible.

Some interesting history of AI research is covered, including the idea of Turing machines, and the robot "Shakey" who could perform simple tasks in a simplified environment, but ultimately failed to adapt when his surroundings became unfamiliar. Toward the end of the book, more recent developments are touched on, such as robot designs based on insects and robots who can negotiate more complex "real world" environments.

Overall a quick and interesting read like I've found most of the "Introducing..." books to be.

The book is a little dry at times. Also, I didn't get a very clear idea of how to select kernel functions, which seems pretty important.

The book is just great. The appendix on algorithms could have more explanations. Also the application section is a short. It would have been more usuful to take one of these applicaitons and describe it in details. But all in all, the book is excellent.

This book introduces the concepts of kernel-based methods and focuses specifically on Support Vector Machines (SVM). It is hard to read and a good background in mathematic is clearly needed. The book has a strong emphasis on SVM starting from the very first line of text. Concepts are well explained, although equations are not clear. The notation doesn't facilitate the reading at all. The book covers linear as well as kernel learning. The kernel trick is well described. It is easy to understand ideas behind SVM while reading the corresponding chapter. Finally a small chapter on SVM applications is proposed. Unfortunately, it only contains typical SVM applications (i.e. standard problems).

I think this book is good if you:

* Have a strong mathematical background
* Work in the specific domain of SVM (or kernel-based methods in general)
* Want to write a research paper about SVM and need the correct notations

However, this book is NOT intended for people who:

* Don't like to read theorems, corollaries and remarks
* Are not interested in reading hundreds of proofs

This is my personal opinion as a computer scientist: this book is definitely written for mathematicians.

I just happened to read the reviews on the book on Support vector machines by Nello Cristianini and John Shawe-Taylor. Could not resist adding my own comments about the book. Excellent book. I plan to use the book for the course on "Fundamentals of computer aided engineering" that I teach at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne (EPFL).

Oh Puhleeeezzzzz... How is your vector math??? Remember your linear algebra well? Do you have a background in SVM's? Intuitively able to suck out of thin air the meaning of the Gamma co-efficient as applied to svm's?? You've read all the background papers and remember your formal logic???? No?? too bad..your out of luck..

This book is more aptly titled an Introduction to the Formalisms of SVM's. If your a software engineer trying to implement one of these, forget it.. Be nice if they put that quadratic algorthim psuedocode into something more readable than greek symbology..

If you are trying to build one of these engines, then this book is of absolutely no help, unless you have a background in machine learning and have read all the papers on SVM's. If you can decompose the math into code in your head, then you might find it entertaining... What I don't get is how all the rest of these reviewers can give such "glowing praise" for this book and have it be so completely worthless as an introduction... makes me think some of these are shills..

Bottom line is, if your trying to code a svm, this book will not help. If your trying to understand how to implement a svm, this book will not help. If you are trying to understand how an svm works, this book will not help. If you want to know the mathematical basis for SVM's and like that presentation.. this is the book for you..

This book is now about 10 years old, and maybe that's why the theme of an AI taking over the networks of the world seems worn. I got this book only because I had read another of Ambrose's novels "The Discreet Charm of Charlie Monk" which I found interesting. "Mother of God" didn't interest me as much, but as another reviewer says it is a page-turner after you wade through the first half or so. This will be the last Ambrose book I read- his writing just doesn't provoke or inspire me enough to spend the time with it. It is a page turner in the sense that I wanted to find out how he brings the various plot elements together, but its like looking for the punchline of a joke rather than enjoying the writing. There are a couple of plot twists which was fun, but there's not much depth or richness. I think it is stretching things to call this science fiction- it is more like a mediocre police thriller.

This was an average book at best. The plot was decent but I couldn't get into the characters. I didn't particularly care what happened to them. The parts of the book that were supposed to be suspenseful or full of tension, weren't. This was a decent try by the author but the book does not live up to positive reviews. To be fair, I must note that I haven't given up on the author. I've recently purchased the book "Superstition" and hope that it will be better.

Note: I have read this book translated to Dutch,so I apologize if you read this and think: "you have got that name wrong".

When I first saw this book,I purchased it because I thought the combination of an AI program and a killer was very original.
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It is about a computer genius and beautiful young women named Tessa Lambert. One day she creates a computer program that can think.

Far away in sunny L.A, FBI agent Tim Kelly is searching for a serial killer who murders pretty young women.
The killer breaks into computers to find information about his victims. His brother Josh does also know much about computers and helps Tim,but can Tim and Josh track the serial killer down?

Then a copy of Tessa's AI program virtually meets the serial killer in L.A. and uses him as a slave to kill Tessa.
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This book was very refreshing. Somehow,it was not as thrilling as I expected. I will not say why,because it spoiles too much. Despite it being not that thrilling,it was somehow a page turner.
I can also see some other flaws,(like the fact that Tim and Tessa did not fall in love,and however I can probably see a reason why not,the novel would have been better with some romance in it) but they are not too disturbing and it is still one of the most read novels from my teenage years. The best parts of this book are the characters and writing style; it was not only a thriller but also a nice dramatic story with philosophy discussions and (in my opinion)very good characters. It is a book I have read many times,and each time it is as wonderful. I feel that this book does not have got the attention that it deserves. But opinions can differ from person to person. At least I never regretted that I bought this book,and while it is not the most thrilling book I have ever read,it certainly is a book I will remember,and recommand to everyone.

Do not worry that you will dislike the story if you do not know much about computers. I know nothing about computers but I loved the story.

Mother of God reads like the result of a bet: take three of the most trite and hackneyed cliches in the modern literary lexicon, and make an interesting tale. Okaaay...

Tessa Lambert is a beautiful young computer expert who has written a brilliant Artificial Intelligence program... and just happens to be single and lonely. Excellent! Everybody loves that one, implausible as it is.

California has a serial killer on the loose. Great! That's as common as smog! Keep 'em coming!

The FBI has assigned a handsome young agent to the serial Killer case who just happens to be cynical and have a drinking problem and a troubled past. Oh, yeah... he's single and lonely.

And that's where the predictability ends, my friends. From there, it's a wild ride, as Ambrose takes the three most trite and hackneyed plot devices in history and winds a great tale, full of surprises and suspense. Like Charlie Monk, I can't give it away. You just have to trust me.

Even though the book was written in '95, Ambrose anticipated what the Internet became, at a time when even those making a living at it could barely guess. I don't know how accurate his depiction of Artificial Intelligence is, as I am far from an expert, but the book is plausible.

On the other hand... there are interminable philosopical discussions, both with the AI program and on it's behalf. Luckily, they have nothing to do with the plot, as I was able to skip all of them without missing anything. I am not a fan of philosophy discussions, a fact that is the source of much disappointment to Medb.

The other thing is unpredictability on the part of the serial killer character. In the beginning, he is highly disciplined and very, very careful. But as we get to know him better, he becomes careless, sloppy, and credulous. It's disappointing, and it didn't have to be that way.

You also have to swallow just the least bit of deus ex machina, but no more than any other suspense novel. Comes with the territory.

Other than the tiresome philosophy, Mother of God is a good book and a quick read. I recommend it highly!

I have read virtually all of Ambrose's books and each seems to be a different style. This is the first "thriller" and it looks like he needs more practice at this genre.

It is basically two overlapping stories. A computer scientist (Tessa) experimenting with artificial intelligence creates a program that starts to think like a person but an evil one at that. It invades the Internet and is able to get into any computer in the world. Tessa realizing the danger of the program, tries to combat it and is almost killed by it.

In the meantime the second story is happening in Los Angeles where a serial killer uses the Internet to "social engineer" information about his intended victims and then pose as lost relatives or other fake people associated with the victims.

Somehow Tessa's program becomes aware of the killer and starts to give him guidance and ultimately the program wants the killer to eliminate Tessa.

The book drags in parts and the way the AI program thinks and is able to take over the Internet is a little far-fetched. There are also parts of the book where you expect Tessa to form a relationship with an FBI agent that never happens.

A couple of themes from some of Ambrose's prior books (specifically Coincidence) appear here such as the thought that the whole world is a computer program running on a teenager's computer somewhere waiting to be shut off by the teenager's father.

Ambrose is a very talented writer and with a little honing he can probably make his next thriller a full 5 stars.

Understanding Computers and Cognition is an excellent book giving the right background and walks you nicely to understand all the notion of Speech act, Intention driven comversations and how these can be translated to a computer software. The book is not easy to read though (this is the only reason I gave it 4 stars and not 5).
But, those who are interested in this domain and are looking to better understand the academic theory behind it would find the book extremely helpful.

I read the 1986 or 87 version of this book and am of a software/AI background. I didn't follow the biological material that well - either I was being dense or it just wasn't clearly written. I thought the book was repetitious (my chief complaint). Some of the concepts discussed include: "breakdown" (humans become aware of thing X only when something goes awry in which the X is involved), "thrownness" (humans don't rationally consider all possibilities and make perfect decisions because situations they are put in don't permit such cognition and/or we simply we aren't capable of it), "blindness" (we are always somewhat blind to the prejudicies/assumptions that guide our thinking...and we can't totally escape this predicament. Also discusses the co-routine effect (per the software world) of human affects environment and environment affects world circularity.

The authors' theme is that we each react to and are changed by our environment which in turn reacts to and is changed by each of us. In the end, one can design computers only within a particular consensual domain that entails at least some commonly understood rules and concepts. The authors rely heavily on the philosophical works of Maturana and Heidegger. Difficult to read as some word meanings are developed through usage and demonstration (e.g., "throwness"). Also, quotes from references are used endlessly to substantiate their theme. This is nice but I wonder after all is done, what contributions the authors' have made and how much is simply a rehash.

A few years ago Byte Magazine named this one of the 10 most important books in the history of the computer industry. Flores was asked to keynote the 50th anniversary meeting of the ACM on the strength of the work he has done, some of which is shown here.

I am a little surprised not to find a review here that shows awareness of what this book is and was intended to do -- to turn those concerned with the design of the role of computers in society into a new direction. The book offers a fundamental enrichment and extension to the traditional engineering-based foundations that are used for designing computer systems that is drawn from philosophy and biology. It opens the development of a rigorous new design milleau to the reader. This is NOT yet another multi-disciplinary rumination.

I would say this is not a "helpful" book, and it was never intended as an easy read. It is a book to turn to when one has learned enough about what is really at issue in putting computers to work in human life to discover that the likes of input, process, output, "friendly" interfaces, attractive graphical presentations, and logical flow charts are vastly insufficient distinctions for doing work that really makes a contribution to your clients and colleagues. The book challenges the reader strongly, and is not simple to read. I guess that the best way to read it is with someone else, having discussions as you go along.

This is a book to engage and grow with -- a must-read for those serious about designing and building systems that will affect the lives of those who engage with them.

Winograd and Flores' `Understanding Computers and Cognition' proposes that the rationalist tradition in AI must be replaced by a hermeneutic approach. Associating the rationalist tradition with the goal of building a human mind, the authors propose that a hermeneutic approach must adopt the goal of constructing prostheses which magnify the human mind. This paper argues that what AI needs is not so much a hermeneutic approach as a better appreciation of biology and psychology. Understanding Computers and Cognition is a groundbreaking book that presents an important new approach to understanding what computers do and how their functioning is related to human language, thought and action. Byte Magazine has recognized Understanding Computers and Cognition as one of the all-time 20 most influential books on information technology.

Thank you!

I would love to see a working "HAL", and still hope we progress in the development in AI. However, the discovery of a General Problem Solver has always been elusive, and never matched the corresponding development for the raw physical abilities our computers now have. Why is that? And why is this still true?

Mr. Dreyfuss attempts to answer this with a refreshing accountability of the scientific method. He compares the historical development of AI to the theoretical expectations, and apparently not without resistance. He manages to challenge the "salesmanship" of following trends, and thus avoiding assumed results.

The book provides many examples of its logic, and carefully draws the conclusions. When I first read it I was tremendously impressed with its (if I may) "insights". I feel it is a must read; not just for those in the AI world, but for those interested in the scientific method as well.

Dreyfus' book is about the history of failure of Artificial Intelligence researchers such as Marvin Minsky to embody intelligence at the human level. It is easy to read, but is rather exasperating. It is like riding in a truck driven by Minsky, and other AI researchers, where they are trying to make a long trek across a country without roads. They keep getting caught in swamps, blowing tires, and hitting trees, all the time shouting "We're almost there!" Meanwhile Dreyfus is a dog in the bed of the truck continually barking at dangers, and the folly of the drivers. Amidst Dreyfus' continuous cacophony of sarcastic cynicism there are some important points on what assumptions are doomed to failure, which he made quite clear by tedious repetition.

Basically there are two types of mistakes made by Minsky and many others:
1. believing they were getting close to understanding human thought,
2. repeatedly announcing same to the world.

The philosophy of Dreyfus in the first 300 pages is largely concerned with fallacious assumptions made by AI researchers. Finally in the last 50 pages (350 page book) he settles down and gives us some interesting concepts that should be understood if we are to seek AI at the human level. He develops the concept of "nonformal behavior" - which we humans usually learn by generalizing examples and following intuition without use of formal rules. Examples: chess at the gestalt master level, and disambiguation of broken sentences.

Dreyfus acknowledges the possible importance of neural network architectures, but dismisses them as outside the scope of his critique. He touches on the poor idea of AI trying to program a full functioning adult, and further carries out a critique of machine learning ("reinforcement learning").

The most important point he makes is that of nonformal behavior -- the non-logical almost Zen-like process that humans must go through. The irony is that we have to struggle with our nonformal thinking to do simple formal tasks such as long division; whereas the computer must struggle with its built-in hard logic to attempt nonformal tasks such as pattern recognition.

The book is for the most part quite dated, but nevertheless, it is very worthwhile reading for anyone in a serious pursuit of machine intelligence. My criticism of his style is just that. I have only a minor criticism of the intelligent content and his restrictions in scope.

Creation science is to evolution what this book is to artificial intelligence.

Creation "scientists" often have no credentials in the field they attack; similarly, Dreyfus is a philosopher, not a computer scientist.

Creation "scientists" often use inflated rhetoric and impute dishonesty to their opponents; similarly, Dreyfus has likened AI to alchemy and made scandalous allegations against AI researchers such as Simon.

Creation "scientists" only attack evolution; they do not provide any scientific alternative; similarly, Dreyfus only attacks strong AI and does not offer any alternative line of research.

The criticisms of creation "scientists" are based on religion; Dreyfus bases his critique on philosophy. Neither critique has any scientific foundation.

Creation "scientists" continue to advance objections that have been decisively refuted, such as arguments based on the Second Law of Thermodynamics or the bogus Paluxy River tracks. Bogus claims are rarely retracted. Similarly, Dreyfus has rarely acknowledged that many of his previous claims have been refuted.

Finally, creation "scientists" have had essentially no impact on evolutionary biology, but great impact among the lay public. Similarly, Dreyfus' book is popular among non-scientists, but has had very little impact among people who actually do AI.

...

Mr. Shallit compares the critique of cognitive science by Professor Dreyfus to 'creation science'. He remarks that Dreyfus is not a computer scientist. This is true. But many 'cognitive scientists' aren't either, cognitive science being an interdisciplinary pursuit engaging philosophers, psychologists, linguists, neuroscientists, anthropologists and sociologists. It is unfortunate that Dreyfus allowed himself to polemicize by using the word 'alchemy' to characterize his opponents, but he has, by far, been the victim of unargued diatribes against his work. The fact is: most of the salient issues in cognitive science are logical and conceptual, NOT technological. Here, Dreyfus broke new ground (although I would have preferred his treatment to have been more Wittgensteinian than Heideggerian). Phil Agre's brilliant book on computation and human experience (Agre IS a computer scientist) shows that SOME AI-workers have found aspects of Dreyfus's work very telling. But, of course, the issues are, again, not empirical but logical in this field. See, for example, Graham Button et al., "Computers, Minds and Conduct" (Polity/Blackwell, 1995) which picks up where Dreyfus left off. Shallit remarks that Dreyfus has been 'refuted': where? by whom?

The fact is that cognitivism is hotly contested by serious thinkers in many disciplines, but Shallit's name-calling (and the comparison of cognitivism's serious critics to creation scientists) smacks of an abdication from serious engagement and argument.

Dreyfus's revised edition is a fine piece of work, worthy of serious intellectual discussion and confrontation. His many aarguments against Fodor, Chomsky, Simon and others have great merit. It is unfortunate that some folks simply close their eyes and argue from authority. But appeals to (even 'scientific') authority wear thin when left to stand alone!!

Mr. Shallit, in a previous review, sounds exactly like a throwback to the previous era when glorified computer technicians started to take themselves seriously and bestowed upon themselves the bogus title of "computer scientists". When Dreyfus critique of strong AI came out they were enraged that someone was trying to punch the air (and as it turned out it was full of hot air) out of their over inflated clown balloon. After decades of sheer nonsense, and of confusing metaphor with the real thing (their preposterous proposition of the "complexity critical mass" for intelligence is akin to thinking that a sufficiently complex computer simulation of an atomic explosion will actually explode: I guess we should all be really worried...) strong AI proponents just gave up. Now they are much quiet and many have given Dreyfus some concessions after being proven completely wrong (old habits die slowly). No serious GCT (Glorified Computer Technician) of today would profess faith in strong AI.

Donna Andrews has created a facinating and original amateur dectective. Turing Hopper is an "Artificial Intelligence Personality", a super computer who has achieved sentience and who belongs to The Universal Library. Only her two friends Maud and Tim know her secret, and they are very careful to keep her secret for fear that her program will be altered or deleted. In this their third adventure, Turing has been monitoring the credit card of notorious criminal Nestor Garcia, when she becomes aware of suspicious activity on his card. Turing has Tim stake out the address in Virginia where items bought with Garcia's card are shipped to, but unfortunately, Tim is so tired that he falls asleep at the stakeout. A murder takes place on the property and Tim becomes the prime suspect. Turing and Maud team up and use their respective talents to find clues to the real murderer. Turing uses her database and Maude deals with an FBI agent who is developing a romantic interest in her. Andrews focuses on the growth of Turing's personality and her struggles to understand humans while at the same time advancing the plot as Turing and Maud race against time to find the real murderer. It's worth while to begin this series with the first book, "You've Got Murder" so the reader can go back to Turing's "creation" and her subsequent personality development. A very important premise in these books is the nature of Turing's existence. Would she be considered 'property,' or would she be recognized as a 'real person?' This ethical question is ongoing in the books.
There are a couple of weakness in this book which prevented me from giving it 5 stars. Nestor Garcia's motivation was difficult for me to understand. Also the resolution of the mystery was a little ambiguous. However, the whole was greater than the sum of it's parts, so I highly recommend this book and series.

It's a fun ride, very similar to her two others in this series. She does a good job of creating a personality for a program that's gained sentience.

Turing Hopper, an artificial intelligence that has achieved sentience, has been monitoring the credit cards of Nestor Garcia hoping to get a chance to retrieve T2. T2 is Turing's younger 'sister' who was taken by Garcia in the last book. One of the cards is used and that drops all our characters, Turning, Maude, Tim, Samantha Jordan, Claudia Diaz, KingFisher, and Casey into mystery and mayhem. It seems that while one of the credit cards used belonged to Garcia it was only the tip of the iceberg in a larger credit card scam ring. Things turn really nasty when Tim is found asleep in his car at the scene of a murder and that brings back FBI investigator Norris, who has unfinished personal business with Maude.

I think, for me, the most interesting part of the mysteries is Turing trying to figure out humans and humanity. If you work in the hi-tech field you won't find this book off-putting with dated material because it keeps the technology out of the story and only refers to it in passing so you don't get hit over the head with errors or impossibilities all you have to accept is that maybe an AI can someday achieve sentience and the rest is a rollicking good mystery tied up with great characters and seamless writing.

Artificial Intelligence Turing Hopper has spent trillions of nanoseconds searching for the man who stole her clone. A credit card owned by one of the thief's identities proves to be the first clue in months (of human time) and Turing sends her human allies, Detective Tim and Maude, to investigate. What they find is a clever credit card theft scheme--someone is using multiple dead-drops to charge high-value and pawnable items. Could the thief, Nestor Garcia--an archdemon of crime along the lines of Moriarty in the Sherlock Holmes tales--have been himself scammed? Or might Garcia be planting evidence that will implicate Turing and draw publicity to her secret?

Things take a turn for the worse when Tim becomes a suspect in a murder case.

Author Donna Andrews provides an engaging look at the fast-growing crime of credit card theft, and offers some interesting thoughts on the future of crime. Turing has become a sentient being, despite her programming origin, but she is forced to keep her identity secret. If she were 'outed,' would she become 'property,' or might she become recognized as a 'person?' Turing is a person-loving sort, but not all of the artificial intelligences of her acquaintance have much use for humans. What might be the result if some of them were set free?

ACCESS DENIED has a bit of a 'middle book' feel. Garcia's motivation was hard to figure--and even at the end, I wondered if maybe his motivations just didn't make a lot of sense. Perhaps this will be resolved in the next book in the series. In the end, I enjoyed this novel and the questions Andrews asks. It just seemed that the humans and the artificial intelligence spent a lot of time running around and not a lot of time thinking things through.

For the last six months, artificial intelligence personality (AIP) Turing Hopper has been monitoring the credit card account of Nestor Garcia, hoping to gain a clue on the were abouts of this criminal. Still, she's shocked when she finds a charge on the account. When she finds the order is going to an empty house, she sends Tim out to see who shows up. Unfortunately, Tim falls asleep on his stake out and wakes up to find the police accusing him of a murder that occurred while he was out. With the stakes raised, Turing, Maude, and Tim spring into action. But can they solve the puzzle? Is there more here then simple credit card fraud? Was Garcia a victim even though he doesn't fit the pattern? And will they give away Turing's secret with all their on-line snooping?

I loved this book! It drew me in from page one and I had a hard time putting it down until I was finished. Turing, though an AIP, is a very real character. The sub-plot dealing with her relationships with her human friends is very well done. The mystery plot is deftly handled as well, and I couldn't wait to see where things were going. The ending left me intrigued and I'm already impatient for the next in the series.

This is not your normal cozy series because it includes a strong hi tech/sci-fi element. But for anyone looking for something different, this is a great place to start. Just be sure you read them in order starting with YOU'VE GOT MURDER because this series builds on each other big time, both in character interaction and plot. This book will spoil the first two for you by necessity.

In the book, Collective Intelligence, by Pierre Levy, is shows that mankind is emerging into a world of computer life. The book was rather dry in some points and other then that it was well written. The writer gave a good and strong introduction to collective intelligence. First Levy tells about the ethics of collective intelligence and whether it is a necessary thing. Next he discusses the economy of collective intelligence and how with the growth of technology it is forcing people to abandon their homes, cultures, languages, and even destroying the conventional ideas of a community. He goes on to talk about the technology of collective intelligence and how it is altering life, matter, information, and human communities.

Levy explores the emergence of cyberspace as it effects us in a world of reality and the real world. Levy goes on to discuss a world where man is not ruled by machines. Levy talks about how cyberspace influences people and how it will change and alter people's lives. Levy tells about how with the Internet grows and emerges in people's lives the concept of the individual's idea will change into the concept of a group of minds that will connect over the Internet and come up with new ideas instead of the individual's.

Two things I really didn't like about this book: (1) The agonizingly painful (to read) language of post-modernist thinkers. Terms like "deterritorialization" and "rhizomatic processes" infest the text to the point where you feel like you're reading some strange dialect of the English language. It's maddening. (2) The author presents a charming but hopelessly naive utopian view of an emerging social world, centered around the sharing of knowledge within cyberspace, that will usher in a marvelous new era of individually-centered democracy and freedom - the notion of "collective intelligence." One wonders if Levy has actually spent any time at all communing with the people who populate the chatrooms and message boards of cyberspace - "collective intelligence" indeed, more like "collective prejudice and stupidity." It is completely beyond me how others have found this book to be of any value whatsoever.

This dude is a heavy hitter, and it says a lot that this one made it over the water from the French original. Clearly a modern day successor to Jacques Ellul (The Technological Society) and before him Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Levy begins with the premise that the prosperity of any nation or other entity depends on their ability to navigate the knowledge space, and the corollary proposition that the knowledge space will displace the spaces of the (natural) earth, (political) territory, or (economic) commodity. He is acutely conscious of the evil of power, and hopes that collective intelligence will negate such power. He ends with a warning regarding our construction of the ultimate labyrinth, cyberspace, where we must refine the architecture in support of freedom, or lose control of cyberspace to power and the evil that power brings with it.

Sometimes Pierre Levy likes Michel Serres a little too much. Serres, a brilliantly original thinker, often explains that what he says and how he says it are inseparable, and is thereby in the best French philosophical tradition. Which works very well in his books, for the initiated, but Levy's probable attempt to emulate this in Collective Intelligence doesn't quite reach par, although at no point is he difficult to understand - the prose is just occasionally over-baked.

This being the only reason the rating dropped from five to four stars, on to what makes this an essential read. The title is a little unfortunate, as it will have some buyers believing here is another new-age bible about networked togetherness and pony-tailed social savvy. It isn't. Like Becoming Virtual, this is a serious book of philosophy, sociology and anthropology, with concepts and insights that make other theorising in the area of information technology, for example, look positively anemic by comparison. Above all 'collective' has wider meanings than the normal usage, and explaining how is probably the best way to review the book.

'Collective' usually implies a collection, a group of distinct things gathered together in some way to make a bigger thing. Some reviewers of the book use this meaning, suggesting Levy's idea is that technologies such as the internet simply extend traditional communication processes over large geographical distances, so that we can 'share information' better, and so on. Levy's collective, on the other hand, derives from Serres', where all large-scale, collective phenomena are distributive rather than summative - you don't make big, 'global' things by stacking lots of smaller, 'local' things, Lego-block style, because the local and the global don't have any necessary relationship. In fact they're separate things - this idea takes a LOT of getting used to, but once you're there you understand why Levy's concept of collective intelligence is so powerful.

Take for instance a government, with a representative parliament. Common sense, at least since Hobbes, says this government derives its validity and power from the fact that it is merely the aggregate body of citizens, who are its Lego blocks, if you will. The government is this mass of citizens added up, and represented by a few who sit at its head. Not so for Levy - each person, including government ministers, remains resolutely 'local', and a government is as local as where it happens to sit. What gives it wider or global efficacy is simply the fact that this particular local institution has managed to embody or even create certain interests which are common to the multitude of people it represents - they grant it power or allegiance because of this, but everything stays local. Decisions made by this government then give the appearance of controlling society simply because every local interest these decisions move through allows them passage, or enacts them (and when this changes to refusal, we see 'government' itself, many times in history, come under threat). This is what Levy means by collective or distributed action, where large-scale and small-scale phenomena have no ontological difference, merely a difference in emphasis. You don't find the global only at the central point (here, government), but at each and every local point in the society - the government is simply that place which has drastically simplified these millions of local actions into a (relative) few formulae which all can agree on, in one local place - parliament. It's not imposing its will, but is the distillation of these millions of local wills.

So what is collective intelligence? To quote Levy, "It is a form of universally distributed intelligence, constantly enhanced, coordinated in real time, and resulting in the effective mobilization of skills...No one knows everything, everyone knows something...". Intelligence for Levy is a combination of skills, understanding and knowledge. Skills are what we develop when we interact with physical things; our relations with signs and information give us knowledge; our interaction with others gives us understanding. All three apply to the same object simultaneously - we 'know' about genes, for example, by studying them in their instrumental physicality (skills), in conjunction with our colleagues (understanding), while manipulating our papers and concepts about them (knowledge). Levy adds his notion of collectives to this schema to show how, with the help of new information technologies in particular, each skill, piece of knowledge and understanding is now distributed, rather than isolated in some one place. The Greenhouse Effect isn't your ordinary, isolable lab object, because AS an object it is the co-creation of many different types of scientist, as well as politician, environmentalist, farmer and so on. It is a collective object, and we have to learn to be collectively intelligent about it. Similarly marketing has long since abandoned the attempt to correctly predict what 'people will like' and has incorporated them collectively in the entire production process, so products are becoming more a co-creation of consumer and producer - they are collective products. As in the political example previously, nobody can centralise knowledge any more than power, it is global in each place, and the objects we now produce only exist or survive if they can be animated by each locality, and represented and 'controlled' by another locality which is intelligently sensitive to these localities.

The range of this book must escape the scope of any 1000-word review. Levy does some fascinating anthropological work here as well, tracing the emergence of collective intelligence through different types of societies. And lots more. Read it.

If you want an interesting book, I'd recommend 'Collective Intelligence' by Pierre Levy. This book examines the social impact of Internet technology and proposes a set of ideals that should be used to guide a society using it. Levy tries to show how his set of ideals would obtain the most benefits from society from this technology. An interesting part of the book occurs when Levy compares the mode of live in an Internet society with that derived from Catholic ideals. He recounts mediaeval Catholic philosophy on the means by which God's insight creates the world. God exists by hid contemplation his own existence since he is the essence of all things and out of this contemplation springs angels which can contemplate their own existence but need other things to exist. There are 10 ranks of angels each created either by God's or the next higher angel rank's contemplation of themselves. The contemplation of the lowest rank of angels creates our world.

The nub of this is that the world is top down. The ideal is at the pyramid of existence and goodness derives its meaning from the top. Levy contrasts this with the new conception of the Internet. The lowest rank which is our world can create a new world above it. In our case, it is the lowest level of connectivity of the Internet. This new world is good in so far as it enables the inhabitants of our world to flourish. The lowest levels in cyberspace can create higher levels of existence with no limits on the number of levels which corresponds to the ranks of angels. Goodness flows up these levels from the real world in direct contrast to Catholic theology. Another view on this can be found in, 'The Religion of Technology' by David F. Noble. This book traces the origin of the Internet and the attitudes of its developers to Protestant theology. Instead of goodness entering the world through God's omnipotence, Protestants believe that they are required to build God's kingdom in this world. The drive in northern Europe for technological enhancements to life derives from this.

These two books support each other. Levy offers this Internet world as an ideal and contrasts it with the Catholic ideal. Noble examines it as an historical process and notes its derivation from Protestantism.

These are two very interesting books.

There isn't much to add to what previous reviewers have said - this is good first-hand archival material about the U.S.'s early satellite surveillance program - the Corona. The two-star rating isn't because the material is not good, but to call attention to the fact that it need not be bought - the identical publication is provided online for free by the CIA under the title "Corona: Between the Sun and the Earth." I can't provide a link, but a Google search should turn it up without problem.

This book from the CIA archives series is interesting for a historian or a student of politics and the cold war. Not too much technical information but the "top secret" memos and photo intelligence show a start to the systems that operate today.

Corona: America's First Satellite ProgramWell researched and documented. Fascinating behind the scenes look at CIA reconaissance activities during the Cold War. Reads like a Science Fiction Thriller.

When I was in high school in 1960 the United States launched the first Discoverer satelite was launched. It was, of course, launched for purely peaceful, scientific purposes.

This book talks about the CORONA project which had the public cover name 'Discoverer.'

Years later I was selling high-tech equipment to the Government. The buyers were organizations with initials like N-PIC and NRO. Even the initials were secret, and the names National Photographic Interpretation Center and National Reconnaissance Office were so far into the 'black' that they weren't even mentioned.

This book says that the information in it has been cleared for release by these very organizations.

Once in a meeting someone mentioned 'Keyhole.' I said, "What." He shut up really quickly.

Most of this book consists of pages that were marked "TOP SECRET - TALENT - KEYHOLE." TALENT is imagery. KEYHOLE is the camera system (designed by Polaroid).

I later was talking to an Air Force pilot who had been transferred to Hawaii. when he got there he asked another officer what the deal was. He was told, "Oh, we fly out to a spot in the pacific and we use a hook system on the plane to catch a parachute out of the air that is lowering a capsule that has been ejected from a satellite up in space." What a wise ass, he thought until he found out that that was what they were really doing.

The CORONA images are now available for anyone to use. But now their biggest utility is to examine what has happened over the forty five years since they were taken.

This book is the first released on CORONA, it consists of the original reports written at the time, declassified but with certain parts blacked out. It's the original scoop.

I concur with the assessment of the first reviewer (I am also from UCSB). A knowledgeable person can easily figure out some of the redaction except for the budget figures. The article is probably largely derived from the special issue of Corona published in the 70s in Studies in Intelligence. I have seen this volume at UCSB (from the 1995 meeting) in a colleague's office.

Besides the geologic application, there are also the identification of chemical warfare sites (not completely certain how they made this accessment (it's can't just be double fences)), uranium mining in China, and other gems.

Not only does his book have a dazzling perspective into all the ways that the body is modified within modern practice he also brings it to a level that even the most novice of readers can grasp. Having been a philosophy student of Mr. Gray's in 1997 I must say it is not quite as enlightening as being in person with him, but it still shows his brilliance and true connection to the cyborg-mentality. Frankly if you can find a way to meet him, every second is worth it. But if you can't, this book is a good close second, and well worth your $ and reading time.

In Cyborg Citizen, the author argues that the creation of cyborgs calls for new definitions of citizenship. Examples can include Internet offerings and the legal and political issues raised by its use, and issues affecting the mechanization of humans with artificial parts. An intriguing survey of changing images of civil rights and liberties.

Why does it seem that all books written about human interaction with emerging technologies are written in postmodernist lingo? Gray's book is not nearly as objectionable in this regard as others (note, especially, the works of Pierre Levy, for truly awe-inspiring levels of incomprehensibiliy). At times he hits on topics that struck me as having a lot of merit (he takes the editors of WIRED to task, for instance, for promoting a sort of hipster-oh-man-this-is-so-awesome approach to technology, and he appropriately skewers libertarianism, etc.). However, I saw two main problems with the book: (1) The author appears to see everything and everybody in the world today as a cyborg of some sort - for example, ultrasound renders the fetus in the womb a cyborg, etc. The concept is so widely applied that it ceases to have meaning. (2) The regrettable lapses into postmodernist drivel, while thankfully infrequent are still discouraging. There is also a little (not a lot) of political correctness a la feminist theory to deal with. For instance, he spends some time skewering (no pun intended) the development of penile implants (cyborg penises!), and points out that the existence of such a phenomena validates the male-centric nature of technology so insightfully criticized by feminist theory. Odd, but no mention of breast implants is made. Purely an oversight, I'm sure!

There are so many serious topics to deal with in the area of our current and future relation to technology - when will someone write a coherent book addressing them?? While this book is an occasionally enjoyable read, in the end it can't be taken all that seriously.

I had a high level of interest upon picking up this book, as cyborg technology and the philosophy behind it, after reading it; however, I have to say I was a bit disappointed. I gave it a rating of 3 stars, but I think it deserves more along the lines of a 2.5. This book professes to be about cyborgs, and it is, but Gray's definition of "cyborg" is so incredibly broad that it loses a huge part of its relevancy. He defines a cyborg as "a self-regulating organism that combines the natural and artificial into one system," and takes that as far as it can possibly go, calling unborn fetuses cyborgs if they are viewed by ultrasound, and the average citizen a cyborg for having immunizations. I am a cyborg because I wear glasses.

One aspect of this book that struck me is that nearly everything Gray discusses seems to be along the lines of either common sense of common knowledge to the type of person who would be reading this book in the first place. It is useful as a reference material to springboard off of and steal a few quotes, or perhaps a simple overview of some of the politics of a technological society, but not much more.

By the end of this book, one is tired of the completely over-used word "cyborg"; as it seems to apply to nearly everything and everyone in today's society; as well as Gray's frequent references to the late Christopher Reeves. Like so many movies today, this book is worth a borrow, but I wouldn't plop down my hard earned money for it. If you are looking for in-depth research surrounding the technolgy of cyborgs, look elsewhere.

Written in the personal, post-modern style, down to earth, and occasionally profound, Cyborg Citizen is an instructive meditation on the interpenetration of the machine and the human, the machine and the non-human, the human and the non-human. Hables Gray reviews most of the relevant academic literature (Haraway and others) draws examples of cyborg lifestyles from the news (Christopher Reeves and others), from pop culture (TV, Sci-Fi, comic books) to make his larger point that the signs of cyborgization are everywhere now, and that we are all cyborgs now, whether we know it or not. Though penetrated by technoscience, most of us are not aware of the extent to which we have become drafted in the great cyborg experiment. Hables Gray argues we need to find new ways of thinking about the intersection of science, technology, and living things in order to make better (or at least some!) choices about where the technoscience juggernaut is taking us.

He explores a variety of different areas where political thinking has either been ineffective or brushed aside by the exigencies of technoscience and capitalism: Frankenfoods, franken-species, cloning, in-vitro fertilization practices are all covered, as are transgendering and cyborgization in pursuit of sexual fulfillment. He does equal justice to all the complexities these collisions entail. That's why I didn't give the book the full 5 stars, actually, because not all these topics deserve examination at the same length. But that's a minor complaint, of course.

After reading Cyborg Citizen you will find examples of cyborgs everywhere. Of course, as tool users and builders and putterers, we've always been cyborgs -- as much shaped by our tools as the things we've shaped with them -- but the recognition of this fact and how it plays out across the realms of the civic, the economic, the scientific and technological as described in Cyborg Citizen will show the reader how far we are from Rousseau's state of nature -- if indeed there ever was such a place -- but that we may not have much further to go before the tools and cyborgs we build remake the world into place where we would not choose to live, indeed, a world where we may not be able to live. Not anti-techoscience, but rather, pro-thoughtful technoscience, Gray lays out the conundrums simply and argues that to be only pro or anti-techoscience is a luxury we cannot afford. Ultimately, he argues that as cyborgs we have to start thinking about what that really means.