12 Bytes, Jeanette Winterson
12 Bytes, Jeanette Winterson
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12 Bytes
How AI Will Change the Way We Live and Love

Author: Jeanette Winterson

Narrator: Jeanette Winterson

Unabridged: 8 hr 59 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 12/11/2021


Synopsis

Twelve eye-opening, mind-expanding, funny, and provocative essays on the implications of artificial intelligence for the way we live and the way we love, from New York Times bestselling author Jeanette Winterson“Talky, smart, anarchic, and quite sexy,” said Dwight Garner in the New York Times about Jeanette Winterson’s latest novel, Frankissstein, which perfectly describes too this new collection of essays on the same subject of AI. In 12 Bytes, the New York Times bestselling author of Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal? Jeanette Winterson, draws on her years of thinking and reading about artificial intelligence in all its bewildering manifestations. In her brilliant, laser focused, uniquely pointed, and witty style of storytelling, Winterson looks to history, religion, myth, literature, the politics of race and gender, and computer science, to help us understand the radical changes to the way we live and love that are happening now.When we create nonbiological life-forms, will we do so in our image? Or will we accept the once-in-a-species opportunity to remake ourselves in their image? What do love, caring, sex, and attachment look like when humans form connections with nonhuman helpers, teachers, sex-workers, and companions? And what will happen to our deep-rooted assumptions about gender? Will the physical body that is our home soon be enhanced by biological and neural implants, keeping us fitter, younger, and connected? Is it time to join Elon Musk and leave Planet Earth?With wit, compassion, and curiosity, Winterson tackles AI’s most fascinating talking points, from the algorithms that data-dossier your whole life to the weirdness of backing up your brain.

About Jeanette Winterson

Jeanette Winterson is the author of more than a dozen books, including the New York Times bestseller Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? Her work has won many prizes, including the Whitbread Award for Best First Novel.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Stacey on October 21, 2024

3.5 rating .."and there's no need to be afraid of the technology. It's how we use it that matters." In her latest novel, Winterson explores how artificial intelligence has slowly become part of our society. There are many people, like Elon Musk, who feel that “the scariest problem is artificial intel......more

Goodreads review by Saoirse on January 22, 2022

Amazing idea, poorly executed. I am such a fan of Jeanette Winterson - particularly how she explores questions of gender, time, and the body through a postmodern lens in her fiction. So, when I discovered that she had written a nonfiction book on technology and AI, I jumped at the chance to read her......more

Goodreads review by Stephanie B on July 24, 2022

12 essays broken into 4 sections tackling the subjects of technology, AI, and AGI from a captivating, optimistic and hopeful feminist perspective. While the book is broken into 4 sections, all of the essays play against each other and circle around each other, and really go together quite well. I ha......more

Goodreads review by Victoria on July 27, 2021

:( as someone who also loves AI and tech and looking at where things came from in the humanities sense this book should’ve been perfect but everything felt disjointed, jarring, incoherent. the essays were hard to read because they were written like half-baked notes, everything was broken up sentence......more

Goodreads review by Jan on January 17, 2025

Jeanette Winterson's essays on the past, present and future of artificial intelligence are the result of excellent human intelligence. It is fantastic in several senses what she brings together in phenomena and perspectives to bring us to surprising insights, at least to me as a layman in the field......more


Quotes

“Thought-provoking and necessary–and sometimes very funny.” The Guardian (London)

“Fascinating…Through well-paced and articulate prose, Winterson makes granular tech know-how remarkably accessible…This is full of insight.” Publishers Weekly

“Digestible, witty, and provocative.”  Kirkus Reviews