Book details

Beyond Human

Living with Robots and Cyborgs

Author: Gregory Benford and Elisabeth Malartre

Beyond Human

Beyond Human

$11.99

About This Book

Live longer, live stronger, with scientific enhancements and the wonders of technology
Page Count
272
Genre
On Sale
09/18/2007

Book Details

Concepts once purely fiction -- robots, cyborg parts, artificial intelligences -- are becoming part of everyday reality. Soon robots will be everywhere, performing surgery, exploring hazardous places, making rescues, fighting fires, handling heavy goods. After a decade or two, they will be as unremarkable as the computer screen is now in offices, airports or restaurants.

Cyborgs will be less obvious. These additions to the human body are interior now, as rebuilt joints, elbows and hearts. Soon we will cross the line between repair and augmentation, probably first in sports medicine, then spreading to everyone who wants to make a body perform better, last longer, than it ordinarily could. Controversy will arise, but it will not stop the desire to live longer and be stronger than we are.

Gregory Benford and Elisabeth Malartre's Beyond Human treats the landscape of human self-change and robotic development as poles of the same general phenomenon.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Imprint Publisher

Forge Books

ISBN

9781429936200

In The News

“Professor and distinguished sf writer Benford adds another reflective title to his large and rapidly expanding oeuvre. Hearty and compelling, his new book elucidates some of the inherent problems humanity faces in communicating over the expanse of time. This slim book addresses environmental issues in order to change how we think about the human impact on Earth; the goal is to make us good stewards. Recommended for all public and academic libraries.” —Library Journal on Deep Time

“Combining the flair of a novelist with the cutting-edge science of a physicist, Gregory Benford tells a fascinating tale of one of the deepest questions human beings can ask: How do we communicate with our distant descendants or with extraterrestrials? I know of no book that combines these ingredients in such a hearty meal for the intellect.” —John L. Casti, Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM; author of Paradigms Lost and The Cambridge Quintet on Deep Time

“We have no evolutionary basis for thinking rationally about the distant future, and Gregory Benford's delightful book documents our feeble efforts to do so. We feel a sense of responsibility to and for a future far beyond our span, and it will not go away. Deep Time addresses the why and the how of truly deep issues, in a fun read. I know of no other book on this intriguing subject.” —Hal Lewis, Professor of Physics, University of California at Santa Barbara; author of Technological Risk on Deep Time

About the Creators

Beyond Human

Beyond Human

$11.99