— Bibliography with Annotations

Agamben, Giorgio. The Open: Man and Animal.  Trans. Kevin Attell. Stanford: Stanford University, 2004.

• In this work, contemporary Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben examines the question of human-animal distinctions. He is interested in looking at how Western thought has privileged humans as a superior type of animal, and how this Western construction has far-reaching implications.

Aleksander, Igor. How to Build a Mind: Toward Machines with Imagination. New York: Columbia UP, 2008.

Allen, Colin and Wallach, Wendell. “Moral Machines: Contradiction in Terms or Abdication of Human Responsibility?” Robot Ethics: The Ethical and Social Implications of Robotics. Ed. Patrick Lin, Keith Abney and George A. Bekey. MIT Press, 2014.

• In this work, Allen and Wallach ask the question of if robots and computer systems (AI) can make moral decisions, and what are the implications of these decisions?

Arkin, Robert C. Governing Lethal Behaviour in Autonomous Robots. Boca Raton, FL: Chapman and Hall/CRC, 2009.

Badmington, Neil. Alien Chic: Posthumanism and the Other Within. London and New York: Routledge, 2004.

• Badmington seeks to explore how posthumanism functions in our current age where the boundaries of the human and the non-human are problematized. In order to do this, he traces a cultural history of the alien from the 1950s onward in order to map how our attitudes have shifted from fear to affection.

— ed. Posthumanism. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave, 2000.

• This book asks the question of “what is posthumanism and why does it matter?”. It seeks to give an introduction to the concept of posthumanism by looking at several concepts such as the humanist notion of humanity’s natural supremacy, humanity’s relationship to technology, it’s relationship to politics, and what all of this could mean for us.

Barry, David M. Critical Theory and the Digital. New York: Bloomsbury, 2014.

Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” Illuminations. Ed and Trans. Hannah Arendt. London: Fontana, 1968.

• In this essay, Benjamin argues that the mechanical reproduction of art lessens its value, or, “aura”. In this age of mass production and mechanical reproduction (Benjamin was writing during the Nazi regime), it is important to have a theory of art that deals with envisioning a revolutionary political praxis because this particular type of artistic production has become something firmly grounded in political action.

Bennett, Jane. Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durham, NJ: Duke University Press, 2010.

• In this work, Bennett argues that we need to shift our focus in political theory from being human-centric in order to encompass the active participation of nonhuman forces in events. Agency does not belong only to humans, and this is important to recognize so that we can begin to formulate a more inclusive political theory of ecology

Bergson, Henri. Creative Evolution. Trans. Arthur Mitchell. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1911.

• Written at the beginning of the 20^th century, Creative Evolution is Bergson’s response to Darwin’s theory of evolution wherein he suggests orthogenesis – the biological hypothesis that organisms have an innate tendency to evolve in a definite direction towards some goal (teleology) due to some internal mechanism or driving force – as an alternative.

Bogost, Ian. Alien Phenomenology: or What It’s Like to Be a Thing. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012.

• In this work, Bogost seeks to develop a metaphysics that explores the interactions, connections, and experiences of all things. He does this by beginning with an “object-oriented” ontology where things are privileged as being the focus of being, and by “being” he is referring to a way of thinking where all things possess the same level of existence. In this way, he seeks to move from the Western notion of the human being the focus of philosophical thinking and reason and to instead examine the relationality and beingness of these different things

Bostrom, Nick. Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2014.

• Bostrom examines the event of machines gaining superintelligence and what this would spell out for humanity. He argues that if machine intelligence (brains) is able to surpass that of its human counterparts, then humans will inevitably be replaced as the dominant species on Earth. Due to the exponential rate at which this new superintelligence would be able to improve itself and develop, a Terminator or Matrix-esque end would be in store for humanity.

Breazeal, Cynthia. Designing Sociable Robots. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002.

• Breazeal’s work defines and predicts the use of what she terms “sociable robots” – robots with an agenda and design structured around human social interaction and assistance. In defining this social mode of robot design, Breazeal explains her own design of a robot called Kismet. In predicting a close relationship between social robots and human, Breazeal’s work dabbles in robot engineering, as well as socio-cultural analysis.

Bridle, James. New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future. London: Verso, 2019.

Brooks, Rodney A. Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us. New York: Pantheon Books, 2002.

Brynjolfsson, E. and A. McAfee. The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies. New York: WW Norton, 2014.

• This work examines how our lives and work are being altered by digital technologies. Examples such as Google’s self-driving cars or IBM’s Watson showcase how we can already develop technology that can mimic and even surpass human equivalents. This advancing technology will herald a new age of prosperity, interconnection, availability of information, but most of all, social change. This book seeks to treat this question of uncertainty in an optimistic way by proposing strategies by which we can keep up with and prosper from these changes already taking place.

Calo, Ryan, M. “Robots and Privacy.” Robot Ethics: The Ethical and Social Implications of Robotics. Ed. Patrick Lin, Keith Abney and George A. Bekey. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012.

• In this article, Calo explores the different ways in which our increasing concerns about privacy in this technological age can be addressed. Calo specifically looks at the ways in which robots add to our anxiety regarding privacy because robots are perfectly equipped with their superior technology and processing power to monitor people at all times. These concerns are then examined in regard to the current state of privacy law, and how there are many instances in which robotics could easily circumvent this.

Campbell, Timothy C. Improper Life: Technology and Biopolitics from Heidegger to Agamben. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011.

• In this book, Campbell poses the question, “Has biopolitics actually become thanatopolitics?” By this, he is asking if biopolitics has become obsessed with the study of death. The origin of this in modern thought can be traced back to Heidegger, in whose work, specifically his critique of technology, there is a “crypto-thanatopolitics” that can be found. In order to correct this, Campbell suggests a new theorization of a biopolitics that, instead of Heidegger, begins with Foucault, Freud, and Deleuze.

Campolo, Alex, and Kate Crawford. “Enchanted Determinism: Power without Responsibility in Artificial Intelligence.” Engaging Science, Technology, and Society 6 (2020): 1-19. https://doi.org/10.17351/ests2020.277

Castañeda, Claudia and Lucy Suchman. “Robot Visions.” Social Studies of Science 44, no. 3 (2013): 315-341.

• In drawing upon the theory of Donna Haraway, Castaneda and Suchman explore the relationship between animal, robot and human figures. In referencing a robotics project known as “Lucy the Robot Orangutan”, the article explores the age old conception of the robot as a means to further understand life (whether animal or human), through replication and control. In their exploration of the robotic uncanny and animal replication, Castaneda and Suchman align with the work of Haraway.

Chafkin, M. The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley’s Pursuit of Power. New York: Penguin Press, 2021.

•  Chafkin’s work constitutes not only a biography of the tech investor Peter Thiel, but also a history of Silicon Valley. Through his investigation of California’s great technology hub, Chafkin reveals the ideology upon which the relentless race for the development of new technologies exists.

Chandra, Vikram. “Pāṇini: Catching the Ocean in a Cow’s Hoofprint.” granthika (January 2019).

—. Geek Sublime: The Beauty of Code, the Code of Beauty. Minneapolis, MN: Graywolf Press, 2014.

Christian, Brian. The Most Human Human: What Talking with Computers Teaches Us About What It Means to Be Alive. New York: Doubleday, 2011.

• In this work, Christian is interested in exploring what it means to be human, and how our interactions with each other and with computers inform notion. He looks at the nature of human interactions, the meaning of language, and the questions that arise when faced with machines who possess a far greater processing ability than we do.

Chude-Sokei, Louis. The Sound of Culture. Diaspora and Black Technopoetics. Middleton, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2016.

• Chude-Sokei’s work explores the intersections between histories of race and histories of technology, arguing that both race and technology are historically dependent upon each other in how they are understood and how they influence our current socio-cultural world. Central to Chude-Sokei’s connection between race and technology is music, especially in the realm of science fiction.

—. “Machines and the Ethics of Miscegenation.” Glass Bead Journal. Site 2. Dark Room: Somatic Reason and Synthetic Eros (2019).

Clark, Andy. Being There: Putting Brain, Body and World Together Again. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997.

• In this work, Clark is interested in examining foundational questions relating to how the brain, body, and the world are all interconnected. He brings this back to an analysis on the emerging sciences of robotics and AI through an interrogation of the tools and techniques that will be needed to make sense of them in our current age.

—. Natural Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Human Intelligence. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

• Moving away from the traditional Western narratives of the cyborg is something to be feared, Clark argues that we should not fear them because we are already cyborgs. This has been accomplished through our ability to so fully incorporate tools into our existence – more so than other species, which is also what sets humans apart. This work examines the different ways that technologies have been thus incorporated into our lives, and the different ways these incorporations have effected adaptations within humanity.

Clarke, Arthur C. Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry Into the Limits of the Possible (1962). London: Pheonix, 2000.

• Based on a series of essays penned by Clarke 1959 and 1961, this work is interested not as much in speculated achievements but rather with “ultimate possibilities”. Clark expounds upon a number of grand ideas concerning the future of humanity and lists various examples of spectacular futurity, not with the strict purpose of saying, “this is what will be”, but rather to say, “this is what could be”.

Coeckelbergh, Mark. New Romantic Cyborgs: Romanticism, Information Technology, and the End of the Machine. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2017.

Coleman, F. A Human Algorithm: How Artificial Intelligence is Redefining Who We Are. Counterpoint, 2020.

• Coleman examines the impact that Artificial Intelligence and associated technologies will have on humanity. In particular, Coleman raises ethical and legal questions that she feels must be given consideration as the technology industry grows.

Crawford, Kate. Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2021.

• Crawford examines the many ways in which Artificial Intelligence intersects with humans globally – from the human labour needed to extract the materials and manufacture the parts for AI technologies to the impacts AI is already having on our politics, economics, society, and environment. Through her investigations, Crawford dispels many of the myths currently held about AI.   

—. “Halt the Use of Facial-Recognition Technology Until It Is Regulated.” Nature (August 27, 2019). https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02514-7

Crawford, Kate, and Vladan Joler. “Anatomy of an AI System: The Amazon Echo as an Anatomical Map of Human Labor, Data and Planetary Resources.” AI Now Institute and Share Lab (September 7, 2018). https://anatomyof.ai

Crawford, Kate, and Trevor Paglen. “Excavating AI: The Politics of Images in Machine Learning Training Sets.” 2019. www.excavating.ai

Crawford, Kate, and Jason Schultz. “AI Systems as State Actors.” Columbia Law Review 119, no. 7 (2019): 1941-1972. https://columbialawreview.org/content/ai-systems-as-state-actors/

Darling, Kate. The New Breed: What Our History with Animals Reveals about Our Future with Robots. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 2021.

David-Floydl, R. and J. Dumit, eds. Cyborg Babies: From Techno-Sex to Techno-Tots. Routledge, 1998.

• The work is interested in exploring the ways in which children in this age of technological ubiquity are rendered as cyborgs precisely by this technoculture. More specifically, it raises questions about reproduction and how this process is influenced by technological processes and what this then means for humanity.

Deitch, Jeffrey, ed. Post Human. New York: Distributed Art Publishers, 1992.

• The work looks at how we as a species are developing into a posthuman state through various technological means such as genetic engineering or body alterations. Contemporary images from a wide variety of artists are utilized in order to explore this emergent posthuman state and the implications therein.

DeLanda, Manuel. War in the Age of Intelligent Machines. New York: Zone Books, 1991.

• In this work, DeLanda examines the relationship of technology and weapons, and how advances in computing, AI, surveillance, and robotics have made for increasingly efficient and deadly weapons in warfare. However, he takes his analysis further by looking at the historical shift this advancement harkens; an advancement that, for him, is indicative a paradigm shift with humans’ relationality to machines and information.

Dennett, Daniel. Consciousness Explained. New York: Little, Brown & Company, 1991.

• This monumental work challenges the hitherto accepted theory of consciousness by arguing for a new model of consciousness. Dennett draws inspiration for this new model from fields such as AI and robotics, medicine and neuroscience, and psychology.

Derrida, Jacques.  The Animal That Therefore I Am. Trans. David Wills. New York: Fordham University Press, 2008.

• Based upon a lecture given by Derrida to the Carisy Conference in 1997, this work poses a series of challenging questions concerning the nature of human ontology, animal ethics, and the difference (and similarities) between humans and animals.

—. The Gift of Death & Literature in Secret. Trans. David Wills. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008.

• In this work, Derrida critically considers religion and questions surrounding it relating to the limits of rational thought and about the ethics of accepting death in different forms i.e. murder, suicide, execution. Part of his exegesis focuses on questions drawn from Bible about the sacrifice of Isaac and the flood in Genesis to consider questions of divine sovereignty and its implications.

—. Dissemination. Trans. Barbara Johnson.  Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983.

• This work is primarily concerned with exploring the relationality between literature, philosophy, and language in a Western context.

—. Writing and Difference.  Trans. Alan Bass. London: Routledge, 1978.

• A collection of Derrida’s early writings that deal with a range of topics such as critiquing Foucault, praising Levinas (specifically pertaining to his ethical philosophy of openness to the “Other”), and a denouncement of the tendency for philosophers to condemn each other because of what Derrida perceives as “problematic discourse”.

Descartes, Rene. A Discourse on Method: Meditations and Principles. Trans. John Veitch. London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1912.

• This work has been touted as “laying the foundation for modern philosophy”, and indeed it is perhaps Descartes’ most celebrated work. It is here that he calls everything into doubt and then begins to rebuild human knowledge based on his theories of distinct minds and bodies.

Devlin, Kate. “In defence of sex machines: why trying to ban sex robots is wrong” in The Conversation (UK)(September 17, 2015).

• Devlin’s article posits that the movement to ban sex robots is superficial, and ignorant of research on human relationships and sex work. In presenting both perspectives on the creation of sex robots – primarily by pitting scholars Kathleen Richardson and David Levy against each other – Devlin argues that banning sex robots leads to a promotion of conservative and repressive views on sexuality. In support of her position, Devlin also references applications of sex robots in therapy, and as a technology that could be used to challenge binaries of gender and sexuality.

Dewey, Daniel. “Episode 44: Daniel Dewey — Thinking Carefully About Artificial Intelligence.” Interview with Daniel Dewey. Nontheology.com (26 March 2014). Podcast. Accessed 19 April 2014.

Dobrin, Sidney, ed. Ecology, Writing Theory, and New Media: Writing Ecology. New York: Routledge, 2011.

• This work seeks to establish ecological writing studies and research as being of possibly the most significant importance to the future of writing studies and writing theory. It deals with the complicated interplay of network theories, systems theories, and posthumanist theories as the central pillars for establishing this prominence.

— and Sean Morey, eds. Ecosee: Image, Rhetoric, Nature. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2009.

• This work looks at the ways in which environmental activists manipulate certain images of nature in order to garner public sympathy and support for their causes.

Donath, Judith. The Social Machine: Designs for Living Online. MIT Press, 2014.

• In this work, Donath examines the history of computers as a form of “thinking machines” that then transitioned into “social machines”. However, she says that they cannot become truly sociable media in their current form because we do not yet have an interface that allows for proper interaction, so she begins to lay the groundwork for what different interfaces for social interactions could look like.

Dunn, T.P. and R.D. Erlich, eds. The Mechanical God: Machines in Science Fiction. Westport Connecticut: Greenwood, 1982.

• A collection of essays that examine various machines presented in Science Fiction.

Dyer-Witheford, N. Cyber-Proletariat: Global Labour in the Digital Vortex. London: Pluto Press, 2015.

• In this work, Dyer-Witheford takes a hard look at the power structures and class dynamics behind the information revolution, and how there has been a massive polarization between the wealthy and the poor that is directly facilitated and maintained through technology.

Feenberg, Andrew. Technosystems: The Social Life of Reason. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2017.

—. Transforming Technology: A Critical Theory Revisited. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Foucault, Michel. The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. New York: Vintage Books, 1973.

Franchi, Stefano, and Güzeldere Güven, eds. Mechanical Bodies, Computational Minds: Artificial Intelligence from Automata to Cyborgs. Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press, 2005.

Fuchs, Christian. Digital Humanism: A Philosophy for the 21st Century Digital Society. Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing, 2022.

—. Rereading Marx in the Age of Digital Capitalism. London: Pluto Press, 2019.

—. Digital Demagogue: Authoritarian Capitalism in the Age of Trump & Twitter. London: Pluto Press, 2018.

—. Critical Theory of Communication: New Readings of Lukács, Adorno, Marcuse, Honneth and Habermas in the Age of the Internet. London: University of Westminster Press, 2016.

Fukuyama, Francis. Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2002.

Gray, C. H., ed. The Cyborg Handbook. New York: Routledge, 1995

Grebowicz, Margret and Helen Merrick. Beyond the Cyborg: Adventures with Donna Haraway. New York: Columbia UP, 2013.

• Grebowicz and Merrick explore in this work the large influence of Donna Haraway, and her contribution to feminist theory. Central to their work is their own experiences with the work of Haraway. They further argue that her work on the cyborg figure has been too central in her larger cannon of influence. Through feminist analysis, personal anecdotes and storytelling, Grebowicz and Merrick give voice to Haraway’s many interests and roles in the realm of feminist theory.

Haraway, Donna. Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge, 1991.

—. “From Cyborgs to Companion Species: People, Dogs and Technoculture.” Lecture presented at The Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities (Sept. 16, 2003).

—. Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium. FemaleMan_Meets_OncoMouse. New York: Routledge, 1997.

—. When Species Meet. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008.

Hayles, Katherine N. How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature and Informatics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.

—. “Afterword: The Human in the Posthuman.” Posthumanism 53 (2003): 134-137.

• In this reflective piece in the journal Posthumanism, Hayles articulates how the posthuman figure must be situated in relation to the human figure. In demonstrating, through reference to authors in this edition of the journal, she demonstrates the ways in which the posthuman must be considered in relation to humanity. In specific she articulates how the works of Jill Didur, Neil Badmington, Teresa Heffernan, and Eugene Thacker all conceptualize the posthuman figure in its relation to the human being.

—. My Mother Was a Computer: Digital Subjects and Literary Texts. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.

• Hayles’ work My Mother was a Computer, explores the nature of language and its relationship with computer code. Hayles demonstrates that code has become a form of language and writing, much like other languages, in its social and cultural role. Further, she posits that code and digitization of communication has impacted our previously analog relationship with language and texts. Code is argued by Hayles as central to our modern understanding of society, and of human communication and culture.

—. How We Think: Digital Media and Contemporary Technogenesis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012.

—. Writing Machines. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2002.

Halberstram, Judith and Ira Livingston, eds. Posthuman Bodies. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1995.

Hampton, Gregory Jerome. Imagining Slaves and Robots in Literature, Film, and Popular Culture: Reinventing Yesterday’s Slave with Tomorrow’s Robot. New York and London: Lexington Books, 2015.

Heidegger, Martin. “The Question Concerning Technology.” Basic Writings. Ed. David Krell. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1993.

Hudson, Laura. “The Political Animal: Species-Being and Bare Life.” Mediations 23, 2 (2008): 88–117.

Hughes, James. Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future. Westview Press, 2004.

Jalan, A. Where Will Man Take Us: The Bold Story of the Man Technology is Creating. Penguin Portfolio, 2019.

Joque, Justin. Revolutionary Mathematics: Artificial Intelligence, Statistics and the Logic of Capitalism. New York: Verso, 2022.

Kakoudaki, Despina. Anatomy of a Robot: Literature, Cinema, and the Cultural Work of Artificial People. Rutgers University Press, 2014.

• Kakoudaki’s book demonstrates our cultural imagining of robots as humanoid beings. Drawing on textual examples, Kakoudaki explores the uncanny humanity latent in robotic and cybernetic creations, through film, fiction and the history of science. Her work, in its philosophical, political, and literary analysis demonstrates what our visions of robotic beings can tell us about what it means to be human.

—. “Studying Robots, Between Science and the Humanities.” The International Journal of the Humanities, 5:8 (Dec. 2007): 165-182.

Kang, Minsoo. Sublime Dreams of Living Machines: The Automaton in the European Imagination. Harvard University Press. 2011.

• Through a historical survey of European culture, Kang’s work discusses the automaton figure in its philosophical and practical role as a symbol and reflection of humanity. The work’s historical analysis ranges from the medieval era to the 20^th century, and explores not only automatons that appeared in literature, but also actual automatons created in the European scientific sphere.

Karpouzou, Peggy and Nikoleta Zampaki, eds. Symbiotic Posthumanist Ecologies in Western Literature, Philosophy and Art: Towards Theory and Practice. Berlin: Peter Lang, 2023.

Kelly, Kevin. Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines. London: Fourth Estate, 1994.

Kermode, Frank. The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction. New York: Oxford, 2000.

Kurzweil, Ray. The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence. New York: Viking, 1999.

Lanier, Jared. You Are Not A Gadget. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010.

—. Who Owns The Future. San Jose, CA: Simon & Schuster, 2013.

—. “The Myth of AI.” Edge.org (14 Nov. 2014).

Latour, Bruno. We Have Never Been Modern. Trans. Catherine Porter. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1991.

—. Pandora’s Hope: Essays on the Reality of Science Studies. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1999.

—. Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy. Trans. Catherine Porter. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2004.

Latour, Bruno and S. Woolgar. Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Scientific Facts. London: Sage Publications, 1979.

Leist, Anton and Peter Singer, eds. J. M. Coetzee and Ethics: Philosophical Perspectives on Literature. New York: Columbia UP, 2010.

Levy, David. Love and Sex With Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships. Neew York: HarperCollins. 2007.

Lévy, Pierre. Becoming Virtual: Reality in the Digital Age. Trans. Robert Bononno. New York and London: Plenum, 1998.

Levy, Steven. Artificial Life. London: Jonathan Cape, 1992.

Lin, Patrick, K. Abney and G.A. Beckey (Eds). Robot Ethics: The Ethical and Social Implications of Robotics. MIT Press, 2014.

Lingel, Jessa, and Kate Crawford. “Alexa, Tell Me about Your Mother: The History of the Secretary and the End of Secrecy.” Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience 6, no. 1 (2020): 1-25. https://catalystjournal.org/index.php/catalyst/article/view/29949/26062

Long, John. Darwin’s Devices: What Evolving Robots Can Teach Us About the History of Life and the Future of Technology. New York: Basic Books, 2012.

Lyotard, Jean François. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984.

Mason, Paul. PostCapitalism: A Guide to Our Future. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015.

Mazis, Glen A. Humans, Animals, Machines: Blurring Boundaries. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2008.

McHugh, Susan. Animal Stories: Narrating Across Species Lines. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011.

Menzel, Peter. F. and Faith D’Aluisio. Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000.

Miburn, Colin.  “Nanotechnology in the Age of Posthuman Engineering: Science Fiction as Science.” Configurations 10 (2002): 261-295.

Mindell, David. Our Robots, Ourselves: Robotics and the Myths of Autonomy. New York: Viking, 2015.

Moravec, Hans. Mind Children: The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1989.

—.  Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999.

Nass, Clifford and Yen Corrina. The Man Who Lied to His Laptop: What Machines Teach Us About Human Relationships. New York and Toronto: Penguin Group, 2012.

Nourbakhsh, Illah Reza. Parenting for New Technology: Part 1. Education and Technology. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2015.

—. Robot Futures. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2013.

—. “Robot Futures.” Lecture by I.R. Nourbakhsh. Strelka Institute (24 May 2013).

Pettman, Dominic. Human Error: Species-Being and Media Machines. Minneapolis: University Minnesota Press, 2011.

—. Look at the Bunny: Totem, Taboo, Technology. Hants, UK: Zero Books, 2013.

Picard, Rosalind. Affective Computing. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997.

Ray, A. Compassionate Artificial Superintelligence AI 5.0. Inner Light Publishers, 2018.

Richardson, K. An Anthropology of Robots and AI: Annihilation Anxiety and Machines. New York and London: Routledge, 2015.

Richardson, Rashida, Jason Schultz, and Kate Crawford. “Dirty Data, Bad Predictions: How Civil Rights Violations Impact Police Data, Predictive Policing Systems, and Justice.” N. Y. U. Law Review Online 94, no. 192 (2019): 192-233. https://ssrn.com/abstract=3333423

Riskin, Jessica.Genesis Redux: Essays in the History and Philosophy of Artificial Life. U of Chicago Press, 2007.

• Ranging from antiquity to contemporary history, this collection of essays explore one of society’s most obsessive experiments: the attempt to create life from inanimate material. By investigate the many historical instances of this attempt to create life from nothing, the essays of Genesis Redux, demonstrate that the quest to build mechanical, biological or other forms of artificial life are driven by a quest to further understand humanity and the nature of human life.

Russell, Stuart and Peter Norvig. Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach. 3rd Edition. Harlow, UK: Pearson Education Limited, 2014.

Schatzberg, Eric. Technology: Critical History of a Concept. University of Chicago Press, 2018.

Schwarz, Elke. Death Machines: The Ethics of Violent Technologies. Manchester University Press, 2018.

Sharkey, Noel. “Killing Made Easy: From Joysticks to Politics.”  Robot Ethics: The Ethical and Social Implications of Robotics. Ed. Patrick Lin, Keith Abney and George, A. Bekey. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012.

Sharkey, Noel, et al. Our Sexual Future With Robots. A Foundation for Responsible Robotics Report. Foundation for Responsible Robotics, 2017.

Shukin, Nicole. Animal Capital: Rendering Life in Biopolitical Times. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009.

Singer, Peter. “Reflections.” The Lives of Animals. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1999.

Singer, Peter and Agata Sagan. “When Robots Having Feelings.” The Guardian (Monday 14 December 2009).

Smith, Wesley J. A Rat is a Pig is a Dog is a Boy: The Human Cost of the Animal Rights Movement. New York: Encounter Books, 2010.

Somerville, Margaret. The Ethical Canary: Science, Society and the Human Spirit. Toronto and New York: Penguin Group, 2003.

Sparrow, R. “Robots, Rape, and Representation.” International Journal of Social Robotics 9, no. 4 (2017): 465-477.

• Sparrow’s article questions whether the creation of female presenting robots, that can refuse consent to sexual intercourse is problematic, as their use would promote behaviours of rape and violence. Sparrow explores the potential for these behaviours to be mapped from robots to real women. His work further demonstrates that the rape of robots is a real situation within the context of robots being representations of real women, and that relationships between humans and robots do not exist in a vacuum, but are representative of real human behaviour.

—. “Robots in Aged Care: A Dystopian Future?” AI and Society 31, no. 4 (2016): 445-454.

—. “Robots and Respect: Assessing the Case Against Autonomous Weapon Systems.” Ethics and International Affairs 30, no. 1 (2016): 93-116.

• In this work, Sparrow argues that entirely robotic operated elder care would be detrimental to those receiving care. Sparrow centres the issue that robots cannot provide the emotional recognition those in care require, and that while it may not be the intention of those designing the robots used in elder care, their widespread implementation would be harmful and counter-productive.

Sparrow, R. and M. Howard. “When Human Being Are Like Drunk Robots: Driverless Vehicles, Ethics, and the Future of Transport.” Transportation Research Part C, published online, 2017.

Spivak, Gayatri. An Aesthetic Education in the Era of Globalization. Cambridge, MA: London, 2012.

Squier, Susan Merrill. Liminal Lives: Imagining the Human at the Frontiers of Biomedicine. Durham, NJ: Duke UP, 2004.

Sharkey, Noel, and Lucy Suchman. “Wishful Mnemonics and Autonomous Killing Machines.” Proceedings of the AISB 136 (May 2013):14-22.

Steigler, Bernard. The Age of Disruption: Technology and Madness in Computational Capitalism. Medford, MA: Polity Press, 2019.

Suchman, Lucy. Human-Machine Reconfigurations: Plans and Situated Actions. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Suchman, Lucy and Jutta Weber. “Human-Machine Autonomies.” In Autonomous Weapons Systems: Law, Ethics, Policy, edited by N. Bhuta, S. Beck, R. Geiβ, HY Liu, C. Kreβ, 75-101. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge U Press.

Tegmark, Max. Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2017.

Thacker, Eugene. After Life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010.

—. The Global Genome: Biotechnology, Politics, and Culture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005.

—. Biomedia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004.

—. and Jeremijenko Natalie. Creative Biotechnology: A User’s Guide. Newcastle, UK: Locus+ Publishing, 2004.

• Truitt, E.R. Medieval Robots Mechanism, Magic, Nature, and Art. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015.

Turing, Alan. “Computing Machinery and Intelligence.” Mind 59. 236 (1950): 433-460.

• Alan Turing’s paper is an integral and seminal work in the realm of artificial intelligence, and is the first work to posit the question “can machines think?”. In his work, Turing redefines what we understand to be true thought, and lays out a test (the Turing Test), to determine the ability of a machine to achieve independent thought. Further, Turing presents objections to the ability for machines to “think”, by considering such requirements as the possession of a soul, and consciousness.

Turkle, Sherry. Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age. New York: Penguin, 2015.

— . Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other. New York: Basic Books, 2011.

— . The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005.

Voskuhl, Adelheid. Androids in the Enlightenment: Mechanics, Artisans, and Cultures of the Self. U of Chicago Press, 2013.

Waldby, Catherine. The Visible Human Project: Informatic Bodies and Posthuman Medicine. London: Routledge, 2000.

Wallach, Wendell, and Colin Allen. Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right From Wrong. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Weng, Yueh-Hsuan, Chien-Hsun Chen and Chuen-Tsai Sun. “Toward the Human-Robot Co-Existence Society: On Safety Intelligence for Next Generation Robots.” International Journal of Social Robotics 1, no. 4 (2007): 267-282.

• This article takes as its focus the ethical, political and legal infrastructure required for the emerging “human-robot co-existence society”. Predicted in many circles to emerge around 2030, this human-robot society will be marked by autonomous robotic entities that assist and exist alongside  human beings in order to create a productive and efficient society. Drawing upon the laws of Isaac Asimov, this article describes a need for more a more intricate and focused legal framework that will ensure the safety of human-robot interaction.

Wiener, Norbert. Cybernetics or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine. MIT Press, 1965.

Wiener, Norbert. The Human Use Of Human Beings: Cybernetics And Society. Da Capo Press; Revised ed. edition (March 22 1988), 2008.

Westlake, Stian, ed. Our Work Here Is Done: Visions of a Robot Economy. London: Nesta Foundation, 2014.

Wolfe, Cary. What is Posthumanism? Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010.

—. Animal Rites: American Culture, the Discourse of Species, and Posthumanist Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003.

Wood, Gaby. Edison’s Eve: A Magical History of the Quest for Mechanical Life. New York: Anchor, 2003.

Wosk, Julie. My Fair Ladies: Female Robots, Androids and Other Artificial Eves. New Brunswick, London, New York: Rutgers, 2015.

Yaszek, Lisa. The Self Wired: Technology and Subjectivity in Contemporary Narrative. New York: Routledge, 2002.

Zuboff, Shosana. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. New York: Public Affairs, 2019.

* List compiled by Karen Asp, Alex Baker, Teresa Heffernan, and Ellen Nantau. Annotations by Alex Baker and Ellen Nantau.