Technology vs. Humanity

Futurist Gerd Leonhard sets humanity's urge to upgrade and automate everything, human biology included, against its long search for freedom and happiness. He argues that the machine era, arriving gradually and then suddenly, will mark the largest watershed in the history of human life, and that people must work out how to embrace technology without becoming it. He ranges over cognitive computing, the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, the Singularity, digital obesity, printed food, radical longevity, the death of privacy and the end of work as currently known. Leonhard, schooled in the humanities as well as technology, frames the book as a moral map. It is written for professionals, business leaders and other decision makers facing the machine era.

Douglas Rushkoff endorsed it as a heartfelt call to put people and purpose back into technology. Christie Guimond, co-founder of She Breaks the Law, recommended it as a read from outside the law.