What happens if the autopilot goes berserk and starts making decisions about its own trajectory? Is it possible to live a day without gadgets and not go crazy? How do genealogical websites help solve crimes? The answers to these and other questions are provided by the books in our selection about the internet and technology.

“Behind the wall of filters. What is the internet hiding from you?” Elie Pariser

In the age of the internet, the amount of information is increasing exponentially, but man’s ability to process and benefit from it is always limited.

Based on an analysis of users’ past actions and preferences, web service algorithms have learned to create a personalized version of the web for each of us, filtering out anything uninteresting and filling our smartphones with only the most important and relevant. Suggested videos on YouTube and Netflix, smart feeds on Facebook, search results on Google are familiar examples of this kind to everyone.

Entrepreneur and liberal activist Eli Pariser, in his book “Behind the Filter Wall. What Is the Internet Hiding from You?” was one of the first to speak publicly about the downside of such differentiation. If each of us lives in a personalized version of the World Wide Web and reality, what are the consequences? How does automatic content filtering lead people to self-censorship and exacerbate tribalism, conspiracy and racism, and paradoxically narrow worldviews and dogmatic thinking?

“Crooked Mirror. The way the internet, reality TV and feminism affect us”. Gia Tolentino

We live in an age of social media, reality TV, feminism, efficiency and awareness. But what does this say about us? American publicist Gia Tolentino wrote “The Crooked Mirror” to get to know ourselves and shake off our illusions. In today’s world with its double standards, perverted ideals and eternal debates about identity, culture, technology and politics, such a procedure is useful and even necessary for each of us.

Here you’ll find essays on the internet and its impact on our lives, on self-optimisation and the elevation of a healthy lifestyle into a cult, and on Instagram culture, which has forever changed the view of ourselves.

“The Creative Economy in the 21st Century. How writers, artists, musicians and other creators earn a living in the digital age”. William Derezewitz

A scathing intellectual non-fiction that deals with the question: how do people in the creative professions make a living in the digital age? Basing on interviews with writers, musicians, artists, and entertainers, the author of the book argues that if during the Renaissance artists were artisans, in the 19th century – bohemians, in the 20th century – professionals, then the digital age is a new paradigm that changes our ideas about the nature of art and the role of the artist in society. This book helps us understand the phenomenon of the creator-economy and to understand how the role of the creator has evolved in recent years. Interestingly, the original title of the work is “The Death of the Artist”.

“Digital Minimalism”. Cal Newport

Gadgets and apps are taking up more and more of our time, depriving us of the joy of communication and being in reality. The philosophy of digital minimalism and its main practical component – digital detox – helps to rethink life, return to true values and learn to use technology to your advantage. The book will be of interest to everyone who is interested in the development of technology and uses it in everyday life – sometimes to their own detriment rather than for their own benefit.

“Homo Deus. A Brief History of the Future”. Yuval Noah Harari

In his first book, “Sapiens. A Brief History of Mankind”, which became a worldwide sensation, Yuval Harari described how an intelligent man came to dominate the planet. “Homo Deus” is a continuation of the theme and at the same time an attempt to look into the future.

What will happen when Google and Facebook know our tastes, personal likes and political preferences better than we do? What will the billions of people displaced by computers from the labor market do, creating a new useless class? How will religions accept genetic engineering? What will be the consequences of shifting powers and competencies from living humans to algorithms? What should man do to protect the planet from his own destructive power?

It is important now to realize that we are at a crossroads and to understand where the paths ahead of us are leading. We cannot stop the course of history, but we can choose the direction of travel.

“The Internet of Things: the future is already here”. Samuel Greengard

Imagine getting in your car, picking up a book and driving off. You don’t have to drive the car – it drives itself. You don’t even need to tell it where to go, because the robot car has already checked your diary, and it has filled itself in by checking your mail and exercise plan. The car is not taking you to the shops, because the drones have already delivered the food to your fridge, which sent its own request to the online shop last week, and not to work (the need in the office is long gone), but to, say, the opera. All of this is already becoming a reality thanks to the internet of things.

But this idyll has a downside: a wave of computer crime, cyber-terrorism and online weapons, total surveillance and loss of control over one’s own life and the world around it.

Samuel Greengard suggests traveling into the future without delay and reflecting on important questions, the answers to which will soon be vital to us.

“Industries of the Future”. Alec Ross

The book deals with the industries that will be the main drivers of economic and social change in the next 20 years. Robotics, advanced life sciences, the codification of money, cybersecurity, ‘big data’ – these are not just new technologies, not just fashion trends: these industries are literally forming the society we will be living in very soon.

The author, Alec Ross, is one of America’s leading experts on new technologies and a former innovation adviser to the US Secretary of State.