Esther Dyson

In Defense of Limits: Human time and AI scale

Due out on March 9, 2027, by MIT Press

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In the age of AI — an era obsessed with measuring, quantifying, and trading everything — how can we recognize and realize the value of each unique and precious human life? The answer, Esther tells us in her highly anticipated second book, is in good questions: How can we flourish within our limits — of time, scale, and scope — even as we consider what we can share while we’re alive and pass along when we leave? What are the differences in limits between humans and AI, and what are the implications of those differences? How can we use our own limits to set priorities to realize our own immeasurable value during our finite lives? What role should limits play in formal sectors such as business, government, and philanthropy, where the interplay between power and money corrupts intentions and destroys value?

Observing her own limits, Esther does not try to explain or predict everything but rather prompts us to ask our own questions and consider our own relationships with AI.

Release 2.0: A Design for Living in the Digital Age (1997)

Esther presents a fascinating exploration of our new digital society, offering a detailed view of the rapidly expanding digital environment and providing a framework that will allow all of us to think intelligently about its effect on every aspect of our private and public lives. She charts the implications of the Internet for business, government, education, communities, and individuals, and illuminates the fundamental conflicts in the spread of digital communication: conflicts between personal privacy and society's interest in openness, between security and freedom, between commerce and community, between government oversight and personal autonomy, between flourishing creativity and the protection of intellectual property.

Written with an insider's knowledge and a ready wit, and filled with anecdotes about the movers and shakers behind both products and policy, Release 2.0 provides readers with a full understanding of the new world of cyberspace and shows how it is transforming the way we work and live. The challenge, and the opportunity, is for citizens to resolve these conflicts and trade-offs in their own public and private communities.

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