This is my curated list of books that are in some way related to technology, society and science. Clicking the title will take you to the book on Amazon. I’m not an affiliate and I don’t make money on the links. One day link all of them and maybe even write a few reviews. One day…
Contents
Machine Learning / AI
AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can’t, and How to Tell the Difference
– Narayanan, Arvind
– Kapoor, Sayash
The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century’s Greatest Dilemma
– Suleyman, Mustafa
Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans
– Mitchell, Melanie
The Artist in the Machine: The World of AI-Powered Creativity
– Miller, Arthur, I.
Prediction Machines: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence
– Agrawal, Ajay
You Look Like A Thing and I Love You: How Artificial Intelligence Works and Why It’s Making the World a Weirder Place
– Shane, Janelle
The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence
– Kurzweil, Ray
Climate Change
Climate Change as Class War: Building Socialism on a Warming Planet
-Huber, Matthew T.
On the Move: The Overheating Earth and the Uprooting of America
– Lustgarten, Abrahm
A Farewell to Ice
– Wadhams, Peter
The Language of Climate Politics: Fossil-Fuel Propaganda and How to Fight It
– Guenther, Genevieve
What We Know About Climate Change
-Emanuel, Kerry
The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis
– Ghosh, Amitav
The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming
– Wallace-Wells, David
Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming
– Orestes, Naomi & Conway, Erik M.
The Ministry for the Future
– Robinson, Kim Stanley
Earthly Order: How Natural Laws Define Human Life
– Ali, Saleem H.
The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future
– Orestes, Naomi
Stats
Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are
– Stephens-Davidowitz, Seth
The Art of Statistics: How to Learn from Data
– Spiegelhalter, David
The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives
– Mlodinow, Leonard
The Predictioneer’s Game: Using the Logic of Brazen Self-Interest to See and Shape the Future
– Mesquita, Bruce Bueno De
The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail–but Some Don’t
– Silver, Nate
How to Lie with Statistics
– Huff, Darrell
Numsense! Data Science for the Layman: No Math Added
– Ng, Annalyn
Data and Privacy
Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention–and How to Think Deeply Again
-Hari, Johann
Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World
– Schneier, Bruce
Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy
– O’Neil, Cathy
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power
– Zuboff, Shoshana
LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media
– Singer, P. W., and Brooking, Emerson T.
Kill All Norms: Online Culture Wars from 4CHAN and Tumblr to Trump and the Alt-Right
– Nagle, Angela
True or False: A CIA Analyst’s Guide to Spotting Fake News
– Otis, Cindy L.
Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World
– Newport, Cal
Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World
– Newport, Cal
Science
How the World Really Works: The Science Behind How We Got Here and Where We’re Going
– Smil, Vaclav
Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
– Tyson, Neil deGrasse
Parallel Worlds: A Journey through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos
– Kaku, Michio
A Briefer History of Time
– Hawking, Stephen
Cosmology: A Very Short Introduction
– Coles, Peter
The Perfect Swarm: The Science of Complexity in Everyday Life
– Fisher, Len
Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100
– Kaku, Michio
Math
Letters to a Young Mathematician
– Stewart, Ian
Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences
– Paulos, John Allen
Game Theory: A Very Short Introduction
– Binmore, Ken
A Tour of the Calculus
– Berlinski, David
e: the Story of a Number
– Maor, Eli
Street-Fighting Mathematics: The Art of Educated Guessing and Opportunistic Problem Solving
– Mahajan, Sanjoy
Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-By-Numbers is the New Way To Be Smart
– Ayres, Ian
Politics
On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
– Snyder, Timothy
Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens our Future
– Mooney, Chris C.
Not a Scientist: How Politicians Mistake, Misrepresent, and Utterly Mangle Science
– Levitan, Dave
This is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality
– Pomerantsev, Peter
How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them
– Stanley, Jason
Targeted: The Cambrdige Analytica Whistleblower’s Inside Story of How Big Data, Trump, and Facebook Broke Democracy and How It Can Happen Again
– Kaiser, Brittany
Mindf*ck: Cambridge Analytica and the Plot to Break America
– Wylie, Christopher
History
The Death of Democracy: Hitler’s Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic
– Hett, Benjamin Carter
Why Learn History (When It’s Already on Your Phone)
– Wineburg, Sam
In The Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of US Global Power
– McCoy, Alfred W.
While Reason Slept
– Brier, Thomas F. Jr.
WikiLeaks and the Age of Transparency
– Sifry, Micah L.
Adam Smith: A Very Short Introduction
– Berry, Christopher J.
Capitalism: A Very Short Introduction
– Fulcher, James
Human Rights: A Very Short Introduction
– Clapham, Andrew
Philosophy and Humanity
The Machine Stops
– E.M. Forster
The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
– Sagan, Carl
The God Delusion
– Dawkins, Richard
Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction
– Okasha, Samir
Worldviews: An Introduction to the History and Philosophy of Science
– DeWitt, Richard