Joanna Kavenna
Joanna Kavenna is a novelist, travel writer, and reviewer. She has held writing fellowships at St Antony’s College, Oxford and St John’s College, Cambridge. Her first book, The Ice Museum, was about travelling in the North in search of the mythical land of Ultima Thule. Her first novel, Inglorious, won the Orange Broadband New Writers Award. Here she tells The Browser that the concept of parallel worlds is no more dubious than that of a single reality, and that this is something that writers have known for centuries.
Books by Joanna Kavenna
“For a general audience, that is a very intuitive way to get into the topic. The novel I’ve chosen is very philosophical. It’s called Zed and it’s by Joanna Kavenna. I’m not sure if the author is a philosopher but if she’s not, she’s very philosophical. It’s a funny novel, that’s one of its virtues. But it’s very concerning at the same time. It’s about a big tech dystopia in which a company called Beetle has gained a lot of power and is led by a narcissistic CEO. It’s about how close this corporation becomes with the security services. What started as nudging—a notification that pushes you to stand up when you’ve been sitting down for a long time or to eat the right kinds of food—becomes seriously oppressive. It’s about how digital technologies can interact with society in a way that invites questions about what is fake and what is real. When you start experiencing reality through avatars, for instance, and through reports by companies, there are a lot of questions about whether this information can be trusted. The author plays with this duality of what is fake and what is real and also with self-fulfilling prophecies. How do we know what technology is doing? How do we check when there’s a mistake? How much transparency do people have?” Read more...
The best books on Digital Ethics
Carissa Véliz, Philosopher
Interviews with Joanna Kavenna
The best books on Parallel Worlds, recommended by Joanna Kavenna
The highly respected author who has held fellowships at both Oxford and Cambridge universities discusses books that focus on parallel realities. Comes up with some great lesser-known must-read fiction
Interviews where books by Joanna Kavenna were recommended
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1
Zed: A Novel
by Joanna Kavenna -
2
Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy
by Cathy O'Neil -
3
Mindf*ck: Inside Cambridge Analytica’s Plot to Break the World
by Christopher Wylie -
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Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism
by Safiya Umoja Noble -
5
AI Ethics
by Mark Coeckelbergh
The best books on Digital Ethics, recommended by Carissa Véliz
The best books on Digital Ethics, recommended by Carissa Véliz
Philosophers have a lot to add to debates about digital technology and the moral issues raised by its rapid rise, argues Carissa Véliz, a professor at the University of Oxford’s Institute for Ethics in AI. Here she talks us through books for the general reader that introduce some of the challenges of digital ethics, from concerns about privacy and bias to the threat to democracy and the future of humanity.
