Books published by MIT Press Ltd

A comprehensive analysis of GATS that considers its historical context, the national preferences that shaped it, and a path to a GATS 2.0.The previous two volumes in The Regulation of International Trade analyzed the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the first successful agreement to generate multilateral trade liberalization, and the World Trade Organization (WTO), for which the GATT laid the groundwork. In this third volume, Petros Mavroidis turns to the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), a WTO treaty that took effect in 1995, and offers a comprehensive analysis that considers the historical context of the GATS, the national preferences that shaped it, and a path to a GATS 2.0.Mavroidis examines the GATS through its negotiating record, considering whether the GATS as it is can appropriately address the concerns of the world trading community. The GATS deals exclusively with non-tariff barriers (NTBs)—precisely the instrument that the WTO has not managed to tame—and one of some significance in light of the digital revolution, which has enlarged the scope of cross-border transactions in which neither supplier nor consumer needs to travel for a service to be consumed. Mavroidis argues that the GATS has brought about a platform to liberalize services, and has locked in some pre-GATS liberalization. What is missing, he contends, is a "GATS-Think” that would generate liberalization from now on.

The philosophy of psychosis and the psychosis of philosophy: a philosopher draws on his experience of madness.In this book, philosopher and linguist Wouter Kusters examines the philosophy of psychosis—and the psychosis of philosophy. By analyzing the experience of psychosis in philosophical terms, Kusters not only emancipates the experience of the psychotic from medical classification, he also emancipates the philosopher from the narrowness of textbooks and academia, allowing philosophers to engage in real-life praxis, philosophy in vivo. Philosophy and madness—Kusters's preferred, non-medicalized term—coexist, one mirroring the other. Kusters draws on his own experience of madness—two episodes of psychosis, twenty years apart—as well as other first-person narratives of psychosis. Speculating about the maddening effect of certain words and thought, he argues, and demonstrates, that the steady flow of philosophical deliberation may sweep one into a full-blown acute psychotic episode. Indeed, a certain kind of philosophizing may result in confusion, paradoxes, unworldly insights, and circular frozenness reminiscent of madness. Psychosis presents itself to the psychotic as an inescapable truth and reality.Kusters evokes the mad person's philosophical or existential amazement at reality, thinking, time, and space, drawing on classic autobiographical accounts of psychoses by Antonin Artaud, Daniel Schreber, and others, as well as the work of phenomenological psychiatrists and psychologists and such phenomenologists as Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. He considers the philosophical mystic and the mystical philosopher, tracing the mad undercurrent in the Husserlian philosophy of time; visits the cloud castles of mystical madness, encountering LSD devotees, philosophers, theologians, and nihilists; and, falling to earth, finds anxiety, emptiness, delusions, and hallucinations. Madness and philosophy proceed and converge toward a single vanishing point.

A guide to long-term thinking: how to envision the far future of Earth.We live on a planet careening toward environmental collapse that will be largely brought about by our own actions. And yet we struggle to grasp the scale of the crisis, barely able to imagine the effects of climate change just ten years from now, let alone the multi-millennial timescales of Earth's past and future life span. In this book, Vincent Ialenti offers a guide for envisioning the planet's far future—to become, as he terms it, more skilled deep time reckoners. The challenge, he says, is to learn to inhabit a longer now.Ialenti takes on two overlapping crises: the Anthropocene, our current moment of human-caused environmental transformation; and the deflation of expertise—today's popular mockery and institutional erosion of expert authority. The second crisis, he argues, is worsening the effects of the first. Hearing out scientific experts who study a wider time span than a Facebook timeline is key to tackling our planet's emergency. Astrophysicists, geologists, historians, evolutionary biologists, climatologists, archaeologists, and others can teach us the art of long-termism.For a case study in long-term thinking, Ialenti turns to Finland's nuclear waste repository "Safety Case” experts. These scientists forecast far future glaciations, climate changes, earthquakes, and more, over the coming tens of thousands—or even hundreds of thousands or millions—of years. They are not pop culture "futurists” but data-driven, disciplined technical experts, using the power of patterns to construct detailed scenarios and quantitative models of the far future. This is the kind of time literacy we need if we are to survive the Anthropocene.

Why video games need feminism and feminism needs video games."You play like a girl”: it's meant to be an insult, accusing a player of subpar, un-fun playing. If you're a girl, and you grow up, do you "play like a woman”—whatever that means? In this provocative and enlightening book, Shira Chess urges us to play like feminists. Furthermore, she urges us to play video games like feminists. Playing like a feminist is empowering and disruptive; it exceeds the boundaries of gender yet still advocates for gender equality. Playing like a feminist offers a new way to think about how humans play —and also a new way to think about how feminists do their feministing. Chess argues that feminism need video games as much as video games need feminism.Video games, Chess tells us, are primed for change. Roughly half of all players identify as female, and Gamergate galvanized many of gaming's disenfranchised voices. Games themselves are in need of a creative platform-expanding, metaphysical explosion; feminism can make games better. Chess reflects on the importance of play, and playful protest, and how feminist video games can help us rethink the ways that we tell stories. She proposes "Women's Gaming Circles”—which would function like book clubs for gaming—as a way for feminists to take back play. (An appendix offers a blueprint for organizing a gaming circle.) Play and games can be powerful. Chess's goal is for all of us—regardless of gender orientation, ethnicity, ability, social class, or stance toward feminism—to spend more time playing as a tool of radical disruption.

Exploring the science in George R. R. Martin’s fantastical world, from the physics of an ice wall to the genetics of the Targaryens and Lannisters Game of Thrones is a fantasy that features a lot of made-up science—fabricated climatology (when is winter coming?), astronomy, metallurgy, chemistry, and biology. Most fans of George R. R. Martin’s fantastical world accept it all as part of the magic. A trained scientist, watching the fake science in Game of Thrones, might think, “But how would it work?” In Fire, Ice, and Physics, Rebecca Thompson turns a scientist’s eye on Game of Thrones, exploring, among other things, the science of an ice wall, the genetics of the Targaryen and Lannister families, and the biology of beheading. Thompson, a PhD in physics and an enthusiastic Game of Thrones fan, uses the fantasy science of the show as a gateway to some interesting real science, introducing GOT fandom to a new dimension of appreciation.   Thompson starts at the beginning, with winter, explaining seasons and the very elliptical orbit of the Earth that might cause winter to come (or not come). She tells us that ice can behave like ketchup, compares regular steel to Valyrian steel, explains that dragons are “bats, but with fire,” and considers Targaryen inbreeding. Finally she offers scientific explanations of the various types of fatal justice meted out, including beheading, hanging, poisoning (reporting that the effects of “the Strangler,” administered to Joffrey at the Purple Wedding, resemble the effects of strychnine), skull crushing, and burning at the stake.Even the most faithful Game of Thrones fans will learn new and interesting things about the show from Thompson’s entertaining and engaging account. Fire, Ice, and Physics is an essential companion for all future bingeing.

How to repair the disconnect between designers and users, producers and consumers, and tech elites and the rest of us: toward a more democratic internet.In this provocative book, Ramesh Srinivasan describes the internet as both an enabler of frictionless efficiency and a dirty tangle of politics, economics, and other inefficient, inharmonious human activities. We may love the immediacy of Google search results, the convenience of buying from Amazon, and the elegance and power of our Apple devices, but it''s a one-way, top-down process. We''re not asked for our input, or our opinions—only for our data. The internet is brought to us by wealthy technologists in Silicon Valley and China. It''s time, Srinivasan argues, that we think in terms beyond the Valley.Srinivasan focuses on the disconnection he sees between designers and users, producers and consumers, and tech elites and the rest of us. The recent Cambridge Analytica and Russian misinformation scandals exemplify the imbalance of a digital world that puts profits before inclusivity and democracy. In search of a more democratic internet, Srinivasan takes us to the mountains of Oaxaca, East and West Africa, China, Scandinavia, North America, and elsewhere, visiting the “design labs” of rural, low-income, and indigenous people around the world. He talks to a range of high-profile public figures—including Elizabeth Warren, David Axelrod, Eric Holder, Noam Chomsky, Lawrence Lessig, and the founders of Reddit, as well as community organizers, labor leaders, and human rights activists.. To make a better internet, Srinivasan says, we need a new ethic of diversity, openness, and inclusivity, empowering those now excluded from decisions about how technologies are designed, who profits from them, and who are surveilled and exploited by them.

How digital technology—from Facebook tributes to QR codes on headstones—is changing our relationship to death.Facebook is the biggest cemetery in the world, with countless acres of cyberspace occupied by snapshots, videos, thoughts, and memories of people who have shared their last status updates. Modern society usually hides death from sight, as if it were a character flaw and not an ineluctable fact. But on Facebook and elsewhere on the internet, we can''t avoid death; digital ghosts—electronic traces of the dead—appear at our click or touch. On the Internet at least, death has once again become a topic for public discourse. In Online Afterlives, Davide Sisto considers how digital technology is changing our relationship to death.Sisto describes the various modes of digital survival after biological death—including Facebook tributes, chatbots programmed to speak in the voice of a dead person, and QR codes on headstones—and discusses their philosophical ramifications. Sisto reports on such phenomena as the Tweet Hereafter, a website that collects people''s last tweets; the intimacy of sending a WhatsApp message to someone who has died; and digital cremation, the deactivation of a dead person''s account. Because we can mingle with the dead online almost as we mingle with the living, he warns, we may find it difficult to distinguish communication at a distance from communication with the dead. The digital afterlife has restored the communal dimension of death, rescuing both mourners and the mourned from social isolation. A society willing to engage with death and mortality, Sisto argues, is a more balanced and mature society.

How companies like Amazon and Netflix know what “you might also like”: the history, technology, business, and social impact of online recommendation engines.Increasingly, our technologies are giving us better, faster, smarter, and more personal advice than our own families and best friends. Amazon already knows what kind of books and household goods you like and is more than eager to recommend more; YouTube and TikTok always have another video lined up to show you; Netflix has crunched the numbers of your viewing habits to suggest whole genres that you would enjoy. In this volume in the MIT Press''s Essential Knowledge series, innovation expert Michael Schrage explains the origins, technologies, business applications, and increasing societal impact of recommendation engines, the systems that allow companies worldwide to know what products, services, and experiences “you might also like.”Schrage offers a history of recommendation that reaches back to antiquity''s oracles and astrologers; recounts the academic origins and commercial evolution of recommendation engines; explains how these systems work, discussing key mathematical insights, including the impact of machine learning and deep learning algorithms; and highlights user experience design challenges. He offers brief but incisive case studies of the digital music service Spotify; ByteDance, the owner of TikTok; and the online personal stylist Stitch Fix. Finally, Schrage considers the future of technological recommenders: Will they leave us disappointed and dependent—or will they help us discover the world and ourselves in novel and serendipitous ways?

Drawing two decades of government efforts to “secure the homeland,” experts offer crucial strategic lessons and detailed recommendations for homeland security.For Americans, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, crystallized the notion of homeland security. But what does it mean to “secure the homeland” in the twenty-first century? What lessons can be drawn from the first two decades of U.S. government efforts to do so? In Beyond 9/11, leading academic experts and former senior government officials address the most salient challenges of homeland security today.The contributors discuss counterterrorism, cybersecurity, and critical infrastructure protection; border security and immigration; transportation security; emergency management; combating transnational crime; protecting privacy in a world of increasingly intrusive government scrutiny; and managing the sprawling homeland security bureaucracy. They offer crucial strategic lessons and detailed recommendations on how to improve the U.S. homeland security enterprise.

A clear-eyed look at how AI can complement (rather than eliminate) human jobs, with real-world examples from companies that range from Netflix to Walmart.Descriptions of AI's possible effects on businesses and their employees cycle between utopian hype and alarmist doomsaying. This book from MIT Sloan Management Review avoids both these extremes, providing instead a clear-eyed look at how AI can complement (rather than eliminate) human jobs, with real-world examples from companies that range from Netflix to Walmart. The contributors show that organizations can create business value with AI by cooperating with it rather than relinquishing control to it. The smartest companies know that they don't need AI that mimics humans because they already have access to resources with human capability—actual humans.The book acknowledges the prominent role of such leading technology companies as Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google in applying AI to their businesses, but it goes beyond the FAANG cohort to look at AI applications in many nontechnology companies, including DHL and Fidelity. The chapters address such topics as retraining workers (who may be more ready for change than their companies are); the importance of motivated and knowledgeable leaders; the danger that AI will entrench less-than-ideal legacy processes; ways that AI could promote gender equality and diversity; AI and the global loneliness epidemic; and the benefits of robot-human collaboration. ContributorsCynthia M. Beath, Megan Beck, Joe Biron, Erik Brynjolfsson, Jacques Bughin, Rumman Chowdhury, Paul R. Daugherty, Thomas H. Davenport, Chris DeBrusk, Berkeley J. Dietvorst, Janet Foutty, James R. Freeland, R. Edward Freeman, Julian Friedland, Lynda Gratton, Francis Hintermann, Vivek Katyal, David Kiron, Frieda Klotz, Jonathan Lang, Barry Libert, Paul Michelman, Daniel Rock, Sam Ransbotham, Jeanne W. Ross, Eva Sage-Gavin, Chad Syverson, Monideepa Tarafdar, Gregory Unruh, Madhu Vazirani, H. James Wilson

Key concepts, definitions, examples, and historical contexts for understanding smart cities, along with discussions of both drawbacks and benefits of this approach to urban problems.Over the past ten years, urban planners, technology companies, and governments have promoted smart cities with a somewhat utopian vision of urban life made knowable and manageable through data collection and analysis. Emerging smart cities have become both crucibles and showrooms for the practical application of the Internet of Things, cloud computing, and the integration of big data into everyday life. Are smart cities optimized, sustainable, digitally networked solutions to urban problems? Or are they neoliberal, corporate-controlled, undemocratic non-places? This volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series offers a concise introduction to smart cities, presenting key concepts, definitions, examples, and historical contexts, along with discussions of both the drawbacks and the benefits of this approach to urban life.After reviewing current terminology and justifications employed by technology designers, journalists, and researchers, the book describes three models for smart city development—smart-from-the-start cities, retrofitted cities, and social cities—and offers examples of each. It covers technologies and methods, including sensors, public wi-fi, big data, and smartphone apps, and discusses how developers conceive of interactions among the built environment, technological and urban infrastructures, citizens, and citizen engagement. Throughout, the author—who has studied smart cities around the world—argues that smart city developers should work more closely with local communities, recognizing their preexisting relationship to urban place and realizing the limits of technological fixes. Smartness is a means to an end: improving the quality of urban life.