Technology and the future

The machines, networks and ideas reshaping work and daily life, and where they may lead. 41 books, each condensed into about twenty minutes.

• AI SuperpowersKai Fu LeeHow China became an AI superpower, why implementation now beats invention, and what the coming wave of job losses means for human purpose.
• AppleDavid PogueA history of Apple's first fifty years, based on 150 interviews, from two Steves selling circuit boards through near collapse and Jobs's return to a company worth trillions.
• BreakneckDan WangUnderstand why China builds fast and breaks people, why America can litigate but not construct, and what each system would have to change to serve its citizens better.
• Burn BookKara SwisherUnderstand how Silicon Valley gained power, why its promises faltered, and how independent journalism can hold technology leaders accountable.
• Character LimitKate Conger, Ryan MacFollow Elon Musk's $44 billion Twitter takeover and see what happens when one owner runs a fragile human institution like a machine.
• Chip WarChris MillerA history of how semiconductor invention, manufacturing, and global specialization created extraordinary prosperity, concentrated chokepoints, and a defining arena of geopolitical power.
• Claude CodeVladimir KorostyshevskiyAn AI written guide for experienced Claude Code users that covers the mental models, advanced capabilities, practical patterns, and organizational strategies behind productive agentic development.
• Co IntelligenceEthan MollickPractical rules for working alongside AI, drawn from real experiments with consultants, students and writers, plus four scenarios for where the technology could go next.
• Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy WorldCal NewportCal Newport shows how many apps and social media services are designed to capture our attention, and offers a thirty day digital declutter and practical habits for taking back control.
• Empire of AIKaren HaoSee how the money, labor, water and power behind large AI models actually work, and learn to judge any system by whether it concentrates or spreads power.
• EnshittificationCory DoctorowLearn why digital platforms steadily turn against users and business customers, how lock in sustains the damage, and which reforms can reverse it.
• Every Screen on the PlanetEmily Baker WhiteSee how TikTok's irresistible feed became a geopolitical battleground over data, speech, ownership, and the future of AI.
• Fifteen Years of Ferment: China’s Internet, 1995–2009Lin JunA history of China's internet from its first commercial connections to the mobile opening of 2009, tracing how founders, infrastructure, capital, and users shaped its companies.
• From Cloud Native to AI NativePini Reznik, Michael MüllerYears after Kubernetes, many companies still struggle with Cloud Native, and AI is coming next. Two practitioners show how to transform step by step and avoid costly mistakes.
• Genius MakersCade MetzMeet the researchers who revived neural networks and brought deep learning to Google and Facebook, and see the rivalries, bidding wars and ethical fights that followed.
• House of HuaweiEva DouUnderstand why one Chinese telecom giant became the front line of a global tech war, and why questions about its ownership, spying, and state ties resist simple answers.
• How Infrastructure WorksDeb ChachraDiscover how shared systems expand human agency, encode political choices, and can be rebuilt for reliable, equitable, and climate ready collective life.
• How Progress EndsCarl Benedikt FreySee why societies that once led in technology stall, and learn what keeps invention alive: open entry, mobile workers, real competition, and institutions that let challengers replace incumbents.
• How Things Are MadeTim MinshallAlmost everything you own was made and moved by a hidden system. See how it works, why it breaks, and how your choices can help fix it.
• How to Save the InternetNick CleggUnderstand why a global internet is splintering, how AI intensifies the struggle for power, and which reforms could restore openness, accountability, and cooperation.
• Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of ControlStuart RussellA leading AI researcher explains why machines given fixed objectives could escape our control, and proposes AI that stays uncertain about human preferences and learns them from our behavior.
• I Am Not a RobotJoanna SternA tech columnist spends a year letting AI into her health, home, work and relationships, testing where it helps, where it fails, and how to keep human judgment in charge.
• If Anyone Builds It, Everyone DiesEliezer Yudkowsky, Nate SoaresSuperhuman AI would not share our goals. Two researchers who spent decades on the problem explain why building it would end humanity, and how we can still stop.
• More Everything ForeverAdam BeckerSee how futuristic promises turn speculative science into political authority, conceal present harms, and narrow the futures society is allowed to imagine.
• Steve Jobs in ExileGeoffrey CainHow Steve Jobs's years at NeXT, a costly failure by most measures, gave him the discipline and the technology that later saved Apple.
• SuperagencyReid Hoffman, Greg BeatoWorried that AI will take control of your life? This book argues that AI in billions of hands can expand human agency instead.
• SuperintelligenceNick BostromIf machines someday surpass humans in general intelligence, our fate could depend on their goals. How superintelligence might arrive, why controlling it looks quite difficult, and what to do now.
• The AI ConEmily M. Bender, Alex HannaSee how AI hype obscures human choices, present harms, exploited labor, and practical ways to demand accountable technology on democratic terms.
• The Alignment ProblemBrian ChristianSee why capable machine learning systems can optimize the wrong target, and how fairness, interpretability, feedback, and uncertainty can keep human purposes in the loop.
• The Chaos MachineMax FisherMax Fisher reveals how engagement based platforms turn ordinary impulses into outrage, conspiracy, and political action, tracing consequences from Silicon Valley to Myanmar, Brazil, and the United States.
• The Elements of PowerNicolas NiarchosSee what stands behind every rechargeable battery, from Congo's cobalt pits to Indonesian nickel smelters, and judge who really gains and who pays for the clean energy shift.
• The Infinity MachineSebastian MallabySee how modern AI actually got built, from game playing agents to protein folding, and why the people who understand its dangers keep racing to build it anyway.
• The InnovatorsWalter IsaacsonSee how collaborative teams, not lone geniuses, built the computer and the Internet, from Ada Lovelace's first vision of programming to Google's founding.
• The OptimistKeach HageyHow Sam Altman went from a St. Louis childhood and Y Combinator to building OpenAI, and why his board briefly fired him in 2023 over trust.
• The Second Machine AgeErik Brynjolfsson, Andrew McAfeeDigital technologies do for mental power what steam did for muscle, creating huge bounty and a widening spread; see what drives both and how people and policy can respond.
• The Technological RepublicAlexander C. Karp, Nicholas W. ZamiskaExplore why the authors believe Silicon Valley abandoned national purpose, how institutions lost confidence, and what rebuilding technological ambition would demand.
• The Thinking MachineStephen WittA biography of Jensen Huang and an account of how Nvidia grew from a video game hardware company into a central supplier of artificial intelligence computing technology.
• The Worlds I SeeFei Fei LiSee how an immigrant scientist helped build modern computer vision through ImageNet, and why she now insists AI must serve human dignity, curiosity, and responsibility rather than scale alone.
• This Is for EveryoneTim Berners LeeFollow the web from an open invention to a concentrated platform economy, then examine Tim Berners Lee’s plan to restore user control and shared purpose.
• Unit XRaj M. Shah, Christopher KirchhoffA firsthand account of efforts to connect Silicon Valley innovation with U.S. defense and overcome the institutional barriers that slow change.
• Weapons of Math DestructionCathy O'NeilWhy opaque models that score people at huge scale can wreck lives, from teachers fired by a formula to voters targeted by data, and how to disarm them.