To be a Machine: Adventures Among Cyborgs, Utopians, Hackers, and the Futurists Solving the Modest Problem of Death

2 Comments to “ To be a Machine: Adventures Among Cyborgs, Utopians, Hackers, and the Futurists Solving the Modest Problem of Death”

1. Anonymous says :

   November 14, 2019 at 6:26 pm

   3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

   
   Really entertaining look at the emerging world of biohacking., 23 Jun. 2017

   By 

   T. C. Hole (London)
   
     

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   This review is from: To be a Machine: Adventures Among Cyborgs, Utopians, Hackers, and the Futurists Solving the Modest Problem of Death (Paperback)

   Really entertaining look at the emerging world of biohacking. O’Connell’s personal voice reminded me a lot of Jon Ronson’s – spending time with his subjects and allowing them to explain themselves – with some summary and humourous ‘thoughts of the author’ peppering the process all along the way. You feel like you’re on the journey with him and question a lot about your own views on the science of immortality and how much we should tinker with what makes us humans. Some of it’s weird, some of it’s bonkers, some of inspiring and some is plain sinister. Shame the book doesn’t broach more about cultural issues as Yuval Harrari’s Homo Deus does – but this is essential reading.
2. Anonymous says :

   November 14, 2019 at 6:42 pm

   
   Informative and engrossing, 27 Aug. 2018

   By 

   Archyateaslug

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   This review is from: To Be a Machine: Adventures Among Cyborgs, Utopians, Hackers, and the Futurists Solving the Modest Problem of Death (Paperback)

   I raced through this, found it thought-provoking, O’Connell’s distinctive voice makes this an entertaining and at times incredibly funny read. I picked it up after reading Cargill’s SF novel ‘Sea of Rust’ which, despite flaws, raised a number of questions about what it means to be human and the potential relationship between human and machine/AI. These questions permeate O’Connell’s work. He’s a journalist with a background in literature, rather than science or technology, so charts his terrain from an outsider’s perspective. Here he journeys through various manifestations of the transhumanism movement, which is based ‘on the conviction that we can and should use technology to control the future evolution of our species.’ As O’Connell points out it’s a peculiarly nostalgic movement. It sidesteps the reality of environmental disaster in progress and produces visions of the future that seem to hark back to science fiction fantasy worlds of the past (like O’Connell it should be fairly obvious I’m not a transhumanist sympathizer). He moves from the entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley working on models of ‘radical life extension’ to the cryogenics movement waiting to freeze their severed heads ready for upload to the AI robots to come to those predicting the singularity and doom to come. Fascinating, enjoyable and informative, great book.