{"product_id":"book-eekh","title":"The Ascent of Information","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e“Full of fascinating insights drawn from an impressive range of disciplines, \u003ci\u003eThe Ascent of Information\u003c\/i\u003e casts the familiar and the foreign in a dramatic new light.” —Brian Greene, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Elegant Universe\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYour information has a life of its own, and it\u003cb\u003e’\u003c\/b\u003es using you to get what it wants.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne of the most peculiar and possibly unique features of humans is the vast amount of information we carry outside our biological selves. But in our rush to build the infrastructure for the 20 quintillion bits we create every day, we’ve failed to ask exactly why we’re expending ever-increasing amounts of energy, resources, and human effort to maintain all this data.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDrawing on deep ideas and frontier thinking in evolutionary biology, computer science, information theory, and astrobiology, Caleb Scharf argues that information is, in a very real sense, alive. All the data we create—all of our emails, tweets, selfies, A.I.-generated text and funny cat videos—amounts to an aggregate lifeform. It has goals and needs. It can control our behavior and influence our well-being. And it’s an organism that has evolved right alongside us.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis symbiotic relationship with information offers a startling new lens for looking at the world. Data isn’t just something we produce; it’s the reason we exist. This powerful idea has the potential to upend the way we think about our technology, our role as humans, and the fundamental nature of life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e The Ascent of Information\u003c\/i\u003e offers a humbling vision of a universe built of and for information. Scharf explores how our relationship with data will affect our ongoing evolution as a species. Understanding this relationship will be crucial to preventing our data from becoming more of a burden than an asset, and to preserving the possibility of a human future.","brand":"Penguin Random House","offers":[{"title":"Audiobook","offer_id":49326418067760,"sku":"BDeekh","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0879\/2784\/9264\/files\/eekh-Square-cover.jpg?v=1773287777","url":"https:\/\/downpour.com\/products\/book-eekh","provider":"Downpour","version":"1.0","type":"link"}