Gary Dana has narrated 4 audiobooks on Listento.it by 3 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 20 ratings. The most-rated is Our Final Invention.
Our Final Invention
Summary
A Huffington Post Definitive Tech Book of 2013 Artificial Intelligence helps choose what books you buy, what movies you see, and even who you date. It puts the "smart" in your smartphone and soon it will drive your car. It makes most of the trades on Wall Street, and controls vital energy, water, and transportation infrastructure. But Artificial Intelligence can also threaten our existence. In as little as a decade, AI could match and then surpass human intelligence. Corporations and government agencies are pouring billions into achieving AI’s Holy Grail - human-level intelligence. Once AI has attained it, scientists argue, it will have survival drives much like our own. We may be forced to compete with a rival more cunning, more powerful, and more alien than we can imagine. Through profiles of tech visionaries, industry watchdogs, and groundbreaking AI systems, Our Final Invention explores the perils of the heedless pursuit of advanced AI. Until now, human intelligence has had no rival. Can we coexist with beings whose intelligence dwarfs our own? And will they allow us to?
©2013 James Barrat (P)2014 Audible Inc.
Method and Madness
Summary
In the past five years, Israel has mounted three major assaults on the 1.8 million Palestinians trapped behind its blockade of the Gaza Strip. Taken together, Operation Cast Lead (2008-9), Operation Pillar of Defense (2012), and Operation Protective Edge (2014) have resulted in the deaths of some 3,700 Palestinians. Meanwhile a total of 90 Israelis were killed in the invasions. On the face of it, this succession of vastly disproportionate attacks has often seemed frenzied and pathological. Senior Israeli politicians have not discouraged such perceptions; indeed, they have actively encouraged them. After the 2008-9 assault, Israel's then-foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, boasted, "Israel demonstrated real hooliganism during the course of the recent operation, which I demanded." However, as Norman G. Finkelstein sets out in this concise, paradigm-shifting new book, a closer examination of Israel's motives reveals a state whose repeated recourse to savage war is far from irrational. Rather, Israel's attacks have been designed to sabotage the possibility of a peace compromise with the Palestinians, even on terms that are favorable to it. Looking also at machinations around the 2009 UN-sponsored Goldstone report and Turkey's forlorn attempt to seek redress in the UN for the killing of its citizens in the 2010 attack on the Gaza freedom flotilla, Finkelstein documents how Israel has repeatedly eluded accountability for what are now widely recognized as war crimes. Further, he shows that, though neither side can claim clear victory in these conflicts, the ensuing stalemate remains much more tolerable for Israelis than for the beleaguered citizens of Gaza. A strategy of mass nonviolent protest might, he contends, hold more promise for a Palestinian victory than military resistance, however brave.
©2014 Norman G. Finkelstein (P)2015 Audible, Inc.
The Convert
Summary
The deepest riddle of Christianity is only this: How could anyone possibly believe it? In answer to this question, The Convert tells the true story of one man's punishing journey across the extremes of human experience, through fire and heartbreak, passion and betrayal, prison and madness, to the very brink of belief. This is the story of one man and one moment - the moment of God's triumph or sanity's defeat.
©2012 Oliver Broudy (P)2015 Audible Inc.
The Saint
Summary
"This is going to be an adventure," James says presciently. "I have a feeling both of us are going to be very different after this." And so it proves, as one jaded New Yorker is swept by a spiritually radiant revolutionary on a journey of transformation, from the narcissistic bubble of New York City to the sweeping vistas of the Dhauladhar mountains in northern India. Along the way the mismatched duo cross paths with rogue Chinese agents, the incensed descendants of Mahatma Gandhi, and ultimately the Dalai Lama himself. A gripping blend of action, intelligence, and insight.
©2011 Oliver Broudy (P)2015 Audible Inc.