12 Bytes: How artificial intelligence will change the way we live and love

· Vintage Digital · Narrated by Jeanette Winterson
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8 hr 59 min
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About this audiobook

Brought to you by Penguin.

A 'BOOKS OF 2021' PICK IN THE GUARDIAN, FINANCIAL TIMES AND EVENING STANDARD

Twelve bytes. Twelve eye-opening, mind-expanding, funny and provocative essays on the implications of artificial intelligence for the way we live and the way we love
- from Sunday Times-bestselling author Jeanette Winterson.

In this original, deeply researched and lively new book, Jeanette Winterson traces the history of the AI revolution. She talks to some of the boldest and most imaginative thinkers in the field and looks to religion, myth and literature to help us understand the radical changes to the way we live and love that are just around the corner.

When we create non-human life-forms, will we do so in our image? Or will we accept the once-in-a-species opportunity to remake ourselves in their image?

What do love, caring and attachment look like with a non-biological life form? And what happens to the gender binary?

What will happen when our destiny is not contained by physical bodies, and our destination is not planet Earth?

With wit, compassion and curiosity, Winterson tackles AI's most urgent talking points, and asks readers to consider their role in imagining a more just and equal future.

"What makes this audiobook essential listening is not just its content (a mix of enthusiasm and castigation), but the electricity of Winterson's narration." - Times, Audiobook of the Week

© Jeanette Winterson 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

Ratings and reviews

5.0
1 review
Sian Eliot
December 26, 2022
A beautiful weaving of past into future. Her observations describe a spiritualisation of matter... as we humans evolve into something more that what we are today. Wonderful and hopeful stuff!
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About the author

Jeanette Winterson CBE was born in Manchester. Adopted by Pentecostal parents she was raised to be a missionary. This did and didn't work out. Discovering early the power of books she left home at 16 to live in a Mini and get on with her education. After graduating from Oxford University she worked for a while in the theatre and published her first novel at 25. Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit is based on her own upbringing but using herself as a fictional character. She scripted the novel into a BAFTA-winning BBC drama. 27 years later she re-visited that material in the bestselling memoir Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? She has written 12 novels for adults, as well as children's books, non-fiction and screenplays. She is Professor of New Writing at the University of Manchester. She lives in the Cotswolds in a wood and in Spitalfields, London. She believes that art is for everyone and it is her mission to prove it.

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