The MANIAC by Benjam?n Labatut (English) Paperback Book

Description: The MANIAC by Benjamín Labatut The author of When We Cease to Understand the World: a dazzling, kaleidoscopic book about the destructive chaos lurking in the history of computing and AI. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description Monstrously good... Reads like a dark foundation myth about modern technology but told with the pace of a thriller Mark Haddon John von Neumann was a titan of science. A Hungarian wunderkind who revolutionized every field he touched, his mathematical powers were so exceptional that Hans Bethe - a Nobel Prize-winning physicist - thought he might represent the next step in human evolution. After seeking the foundations of mathematics during his youth in Germany, von Neumann emigrated to the United States, where he became entangled in the power games of the Cold War; he designed the worlds first programmable computer, invented game theory, pioneered AI and digital life, and helped create the atomic bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He was the darling of the military industrial complex, but when illness unmoored his mind, his work pushed further into areas beyond human comprehension and control. The MANIAC places von Neumann at the center of a literary triptych about the dark foundations of our modern world and the nascent era of AI. It begins with Paul Ehrenfest, an Austrian physicist and close friend of Einstein, who fell into despair when he saw science and technology become tyrannical forces; it ends a hundred years later, in the showdown between the South Korean Go Master, Lee Sedol, and the AI program AlphaGo. Braiding fact with fiction, Benjamin Labatut takes us on a journey to the frontiers of rational thought, where invention outpaces human understanding and offers godlike power, but takes us to the brink of Armageddon. Author Biography Benjamin Labatut is a Chilean author born in the Netherlands in 1980. He was raised in The Hague before settling in Chile, where he lives and works. His book When We Cease to Understand the World has been translated into over thirty languages: it was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, selected for Barack Obamas Summer Reading List and named a Guardian, New York Times and New Statesman Book of the Year. The MANIAC is Labatuts first book written in English. Labatut lives with his family in Santiago, Chile. Review Brilliantly cerebral - Sunday Telegraph (five stars)[Labatut] is fast emerging as the most significant South American writer since Borges... There is no one writing like him anywhere in the world - TelegraphReads like physicist Carlo Rovelli crossed with the cosmic horror of HP Lovecraft - Chris PowerImaginatively told through the fictionalised personal testimony of von Neumanns friends and family, the novel is as engrossing as it is disturbing - Financial Times, Books of the YearIntoxicating... this marvel of a book, which inspires awe and dread in equal measure, is stalked by the greatest terrors of the 20th century, yet its final heart-stopping sentence makes clear the greatest terrors are yet to come - Daily Mail Details ISBN1782279822 Author Benjamín Labatut Publisher Pushkin Press Year 2024 ISBN-13 9781782279822 Format Paperback Imprint Pushkin Press Place of Publication London Country of Publication United Kingdom DEWEY 863.7 Audience General Publication Date 2024-07-04 UK Release Date 2024-07-04 Pages 368 Translated from English Language English ISBN-10 1782279822 NZ Release Date 2024-12-02 We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:160031141;

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