How AI will challenge our ideas about personhood. Chatbots like ChatGPT have challenged human exceptionalism: we are no longer the only beings capable of generating language and ideas fluently. But is ChatGPT conscious? Or is it merely engaging in sophisticated mimicry? And what happens in the future if the claims to consciousness are more credible? In The Line, James Boyle explores what these changes might do to our concept of personhood, to "the line" we believe separates our species from the rest of the world, but also separates "persons" with legal rights from objects. The personhood wars--over the rights of corporations, animals, over the question of when life begins and ends--have always been contentious. We've even denied the personhood of members of our own species. How will those old fights affect the new ones, and vice versa? Boyle pursues those questions across a dizzying array of fields. He discusses moral philosophy and science fiction, transgenic species, nonhuman
The brilliant and acclaimed New York Times bestseller from the author of The Women and When the Killing’s Done Just off the coast of Southern California, two families—one in the 1880s and one in the
The island of Anacapa, off the coast of California, is overrun with black rats which are threatening the ancient population of ground-nesting birds. Alma Boyd Takesue of the National Park Service is c
A captivating story about a very special and surprisingly talented dancing cat, with wonderful illustrations that remarkably capture various dancing stylesHave you ever wondered what your cat gets up
