Overview

Technology is developing fast – so fast that it threatens to overwhelm the very species whose genius lies in its technological cunning: us. From the metaverse to genetic engineering and mood-altering pharmaceuticals, to cybersex and cyberwar and the widespread automation of work, new technologies are rewriting the terms of our existence, not in a neutral spirit of ‘progress’ but in line with the priorities of power and profit, and in ways that often work against the grain of our fundamental being. In this timely, provocative book, Richard King argues that we need to evolve a more critical attitude to new technologies if we are to avoid a world in which humans are no different in kind from algorithmic machines. The stakes could not be higher. As science, technology and capitalism fuse into a single system, and activists and entrepreneurs talk of a ‘post-human’ future in which individuals will transform themselves using powerful computers and biotechnologies, we are entering unchartered territory – a territory marked with the mapmaker’s warning, Here Be Dragons ... Here Be Monsters.

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9781922633385

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Endlessly fascinating. An extraordinary inquiry into the hidden ways in which technology shapes and reshapes human being and our world, by one of our most stylish and elegant writers. -- Guy Rundle Like a cave-diver, Richard King steadily explores his way through the chambers of consequence that lie beneath, around, above and within our relationship with technology. Some are easily illuminated; others keep their shadows, but King sounds out the dimensions, the contours and the crags of this world in which human and machine are together becoming more and more submersed in unknown waters.   Concerned and sceptical but not unjust, King surveys both the big innovations and the philosophical legacies of this tech age, somehow finding space for meditations on humanity, an astute grasp of upcoming invention, and the posing of fierce, urgent questions. It is, he says, “humanity’s ability to ask what is suitable – what is good, what is bad, what is progress, what is regress – that separates it from other species.” In this excellent, very readable, and laudably ambitious work, Richard King takes nothing for granted, but gives us a portrait of a species in the act of utterly changing itself, a terrible beauty being born. -- Kate Holden Technologies like artificial intelligence are changing our world. But all too often, technology is seen as destiny. Here Be Monsters is an important and engaging look at how these tools are using us, and how we must act to regain our essential humanity. -- Toby Walsh Here Be Monsters is an intelligent and thoughtful meditation on the relationship between technology and humanity. Pulling together tech criticism, literary theory and history, King has created a text that is bigger than the sum of its parts. This thoroughly enjoyable text gives the reader the confidence to commit to a bold ambition for a more democratic technological future. -- Lizzie O'Shea

Endlessly fascinating. An extraordinary inquiry into the hidden ways in which technology shapes and reshapes human being and our world, by one of our most stylish and elegant writers. -- Guy Rundle Like a cave-diver, Richard King steadily explores his way through the chambers of consequence that lie beneath, around, above and within our relationship with technology. Some are easily illuminated; others keep their shadows, but King sounds out the dimensions, the contours and the crags of this world in which human and machine are together becoming more and more submersed in unknown waters. Concerned and sceptical but not unjust, King surveys both the big innovations and the philosophical legacies of this tech age, somehow finding space for meditations on humanity, an astute grasp of upcoming invention, and the posing of fierce, urgent questions. It is, he says, humanity's ability to ask what is suitable - what is good, what is bad, what is progress, what is regress - that separates it from other species. In this excellent, very readable, and laudably ambitious work, Richard King takes nothing for granted, but gives us a portrait of a species in the act of utterly changing itself, a terrible beauty being born. -- Kate Holden Technologies like artificial intelligence are changing our world. But all too often, technology is seen as destiny. Here Be Monsters is an important and engaging look at how these tools are using us, and how we must act to regain our essential humanity. -- Toby Walsh Here Be Monsters is an intelligent and thoughtful meditation on the relationship between technology and humanity. Pulling together tech criticism, literary theory and history, King has created a text that is bigger than the sum of its parts. This thoroughly enjoyable text gives the reader the confidence to commit to a bold ambition for a more democratic technological future. -- Lizzie O'Shea

Author Information

Richard King is an English author, critic and poet based in Fremantle, Western Australia. He studied at Salford University and the University of Sussex, gaining an MA in Literary History and Cultural Discourse, before moving to London to work in publishing. He is the author of On Offence: The Politics of Indignation (Scribe, 2013), published in Australia, the UK and the US. Richard’s work appears widely, including in Best Australian Poems, Best Australian Science Writing, The Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Monthly and The London Magazine. The late Clive James said of him, ‘King … make[s] news out of culture, and without trivialising the second thing in favour of the first.’

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