Written by a leading expert who has played a key role in developing cutting-edge technologies, this book delves into the intersection of computer science, artificial intelligence, and philosophy. Since their invention, computers have kept revolutionizing the world at a staggering pace. And yet, through recent conquests in AI and computer graphics, the profound effects of this revolution threaten to upend much of the previous world order. Sitting squarely at the crossroads of computer science, history, socioeconomics, ethics, and philosophy, and written by an insider who contributed foundational work to many of the latest and most pervasive technologies, this book offers a much-needed reframing of the past, present, and future of computing. AUTHOR: Jacopo Pantaleoni is an author, mathematician and computer scientist who is relying on his unique experience as a long-time industry insider to investigate the broad impact and side effects of emerging technologies on democracy and humankind. Before exploring this new side of his polyhedric work, he had spent over twenty-five years doing core research at the leading edge of the computer graphics and high-performance computing industries that provided the pillars of the ongoing AI and Metaverse initiatives. He had pioneered the use of photorealistic rendering in the visual effects world in the late 90s, led research at one of the main companies producing the software originally used to give life to The Matrix movies, contributed key technology for the making of James Cameron's Avatar, and worked for over 15 years as a Principal Scientist at NVIDIA, exploring the use, design and potential of the now pervasive Graphics Processing Units powering the world's largest hyper-scale data centers and AI factories.