Poetry on Mars and robots on Earth: Books in brief
Briefly

Historian Robin Derricourt identifies five pivotal innovations that transformed societies: fire, horse domestication, writing, printing, and wireless communication. Each technological advance created distinct separations within communities based on those who possessed these skills versus those who did not. Concurrently, sociologist Antonio Casilli critiques modern-day AI systems that give the illusion of autonomy, which in reality depend on less-visible, often undercompensated labor. He highlights this dynamic in his examination of historical practices, such as Thomas Jefferson’s use of dumbwaiters and their reliance on enslaved individuals for operation, drawing parallels to current AI labor practices.
Read at Nature
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