Books, reports, podcasts, and technical references for Dispatches from Emerging Intelligence. This list is organized by the current DFEI reading taxonomy and uses direct publisher or primary-source links where available.
Reading Taxonomy
Dispatches from Emerging Intelligence
The reading list is not a neutral bookshelf. It is a terrain map: intelligence, interaction, agents, trust, governance, security, culture, and operational method.
EMERGING INTELLIGENCE
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A Brief History of Intelligence
Evolution, AI, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains
Secondary: Culture, Philosophy, and Society
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The Edge of Sentience
Risk and Precaution in Humans, Other Animals, and AI
Secondary: Culture, Philosophy, and Society
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What Is Intelligence?
Lessons from AI About Evolution, Computing, and Minds
Secondary: Culture, Philosophy, and Society
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Reality+
Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy
Secondary: Culture, Philosophy, and Society
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Being You
The Inside Story of Your Inner Universe
Secondary: Culture, Philosophy, and Society
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The Emergent Mind
How Intelligence Arises in People and Machines
Secondary: Human–Machine Interaction
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The Case Against Reality
Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes
Secondary: Culture, Philosophy, and Society
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The Line
AI and the Future of Personhood
Secondary: Culture, Philosophy, and Society
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The Maniac
Benjamín Labatut — 2023 Penguin Press / 1st / Hardcover
Secondary: Culture, Philosophy, and Society
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Superintelligence
Paths, Dangers, Strategies
Secondary: Culture, Philosophy, and Society
HUMAN–MACHINE INTERACTION
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Artificial Intimacy
Who We Become When We Talk to Machines
Secondary: Trust, Repair, and Reliance
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The Media Equation
How People Treat Computers, Television, and New Media Like Real People and Places
Secondary: Culture, Philosophy, and Society
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Computer Power and Human Reason
From Judgment to Calculation
Secondary: Trust, Repair, and Reliance
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Raising AI
An Essential Guide to Parenting Our Future
Secondary: Culture, Philosophy, and Society
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Co-Intelligence
Living and Working with AI
Secondary: Tools, Terrain, and Method
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Alone Together
Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other
Secondary: Culture, Philosophy, and Society
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Reclaiming Conversation
The Power of Talk in a Digital Age
Secondary: Culture, Philosophy, and Society
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Designing Voice User Interfaces
Principles of Conversational Experiences
Secondary: Tools, Terrain, and Method
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The Design of Everyday Things
Revised and Expanded Edition
Secondary: Culture, Philosophy, and Society
AGENTS, ACCESS, AND CONTINUITY
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AI Engineering
Building Applications with Foundation Models
Secondary: Tools, Terrain, and Method
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Generative AI in Action
Amit Bahree — 2024 Manning / 1st / Trade Paperback
Secondary: Tools, Terrain, and Method
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AI Agents in Action
Micheal Lanham — 2025 Manning / 2nd Edition / MEAP (Early Access)
Secondary: Tools, Terrain, and Method
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Building Agentic AI Systems
Onur Eren — 2025 Packt Publishing / 1st / Paperback
Secondary: Tools, Terrain, and Method
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The Scaling Era
An Oral History of AI, 2019–2025
Secondary: Culture, Philosophy, and Society
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Building Applications with AI Agents
An Engineering Guide to Orchestration Frameworks
Secondary: Tools, Terrain, and Method
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LLM Engineer's Handbook
Master the Art of Building Next-Gen AI Applications
Secondary: Tools, Terrain, and Method
TRUST, REPAIR, AND RELIANCE
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The AI Con
How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want
Secondary: Governance, Power, and Institutional Risk
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Artificial Intimacy
Who We Become When We Talk to Machines
Secondary: Human–Machine Interaction
- Your Undivided Attention
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Practical Automated Model Evaluation
A Guide for Data Engineers
Secondary: Tools, Terrain, and Method
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Wired for Innovation
How Information Technology Is Reshaping the Economy
Secondary: Culture, Philosophy, and Society
GOVERNANCE, POWER, AND INSTITUTIONAL RISK
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The Thinking Machine
Jensen Huang, Nvidia, and the World's Most Coveted Microchip
Secondary: Tools, Terrain, and Method
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The Coming Wave
AI, Power, and Our Future
Secondary: Security, Influence, and Manipulation
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Project Maven
A Marine Colonel, His Team, and the Dawn of AI Warfare
Secondary: Security, Influence, and Manipulation
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Empire of AI
Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI
Secondary: Culture, Philosophy, and Society
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Supremacy
AI, ChatGPT, and the Race That Will Change the World
Secondary: Culture, Philosophy, and Society
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Cloud Policy
A History of Regulating Pipelines, Platforms, and Data
Secondary: Security, Influence, and Manipulation
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The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power
Secondary: Culture, Philosophy, and Society
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The Age of Extraction
How Tech Platforms Conquered the Economy and Threaten Our Future Prosperity
Secondary: Culture, Philosophy, and Society
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Blood in the Machine
The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech
Secondary: Culture, Philosophy, and Society
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The Technological Republic
Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West
Secondary: Security, Influence, and Manipulation
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Private Power and Democracy’s Decline
How to Make Capitalism Work for Us
Secondary: Culture, Philosophy, and Society
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Digital Authoritarianism in the Making
Françoise Daucé; Benjamin Loveluck; Francesca Musiani (eds.) — 2025 The MIT Press / 1st / Paperback
Secondary: Security, Influence, and Manipulation
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AI-Ready Data Blueprints
Data Orchestration for Enterprise AI Systems
Secondary: Tools, Terrain, and Method
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The AI Engineer's Guide to Surviving the EU AI Act
A Blueprint for Risk Mitigation and Technical Compliance
Secondary: Tools, Terrain, and Method
SECURITY, INFLUENCE, AND MANIPULATION
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The Language of Deception
Weaponizing Next Generation AI
Secondary: Human–Machine Interaction
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AI, Automation, and War
The Rise of a Military-Tech Complex
Secondary: Governance, Power, and Institutional Risk
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If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies
Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All
Secondary: Culture, Philosophy, and Society
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Code Red
The Left, the Right, China, and the Race to Control AI
Secondary: Governance, Power, and Institutional Risk
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FAIK
A Practical Guide to Living in a World of Deepfakes, Disinformation, and AI-Generated Deceptions
Secondary: Trust, Repair, and Reliance
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Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Power
5 Battlegrounds
Secondary: Governance, Power, and Institutional Risk
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Hands-On Graph Analytics with Neo4j
Analyze complex data relationships and network architectures
Secondary: Tools, Terrain, and Method
CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, AND SOCIETY
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More Everything Forever
AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley's Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity
Secondary: Governance, Power, and Institutional Risk
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Nexus
A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI
Secondary: Security, Influence, and Manipulation
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Artificial Religion
On AI, Myth, and Power
Secondary: Governance, Power, and Institutional Risk
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Determined
A Science of Life without Free Will
Secondary: Emerging Intelligence
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Program or Be Programmed
Ten Commands for a Digital Age
Secondary: Human–Machine Interaction
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The Loop
How Technology Is Creating a World Without Choices and How to Fight Back
Secondary: Security, Influence, and Manipulation
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We Are as Gods
A Survival Guide for the Age of Abundance
Secondary: Governance, Power, and Institutional Risk
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The Singularity Is Nearer
When We Merge with AI
Secondary: Emerging Intelligence
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Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and the Image of God
Can Machines Attain Consciousness and Receive Salvation?
Secondary: Emerging Intelligence
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What Should My Children Do?
A Human's Guide to the Future
Secondary: Tools, Terrain, and Method
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The Alignment Problem
Machine Learning and Human Values
Secondary: Trust, Repair, and Reliance
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The Case Against Reality
Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes
Secondary: Emerging Intelligence
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Technopoly
The Surrender of Culture to Technology
Secondary: Human–Machine Interaction
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Atlas of AI
Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence
Secondary: Governance, Power, and Institutional Risk
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Algorithms of Oppression
How Search Engines Reinforce Racism
Secondary: Governance, Power, and Institutional Risk
TOOLS, TERRAIN, AND METHOD
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Evals for AI Engineers
Hamel Husain; Shreya Shankar — 2026 O'Reilly Media / Early Release
Secondary: Trust, Repair, and Reliance
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Practices for Governing Agentic AI Systems
OpenAI — 2024 OpenAI / Technical Report
Secondary: Governance, Power, and Institutional Risk
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Building Effective Agents
Anthropic — 2024 Anthropic / Technical Report
Secondary: Agents, Access, and Continuity
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Hands-On Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn, Keras, and TensorFlow
Concepts, Tools, and Techniques to Build Intelligent Systems
Secondary: Trust, Repair, and Reliance
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Machine Learning Design Patterns
Solutions to Common Challenges in Data Preparation, Model Building, and MLOps
Secondary: Trust, Repair, and Reliance
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Data Science on AWS
Implementing End-to-End Data Science and MLOps Pipelines
Secondary: Trust, Repair, and Reliance