Penguin presents the audiobook model of Novacene compiled by James Lovelock, browse by Roy McMillan.

James Lovelock, creator of the Gaia hypothesis and the greatest environmental thinker of our time, has produced an astounding new theory about potential of life on the planet. He argues the anthropocene – this in which human beings acquired planetary-scale systems – is, after 300 years, arriving at an end. A fresh age – the novacene – has recently begun.

New beings will emerge from existing on the subject of Novacene: The Coming Age of Hyperintelligence artificial intelligence systems. They’ll think 10,000 times quicker than we do and they’ll regard us as we now regard vegetation – as frantically slow acting and thinking animals. But this will never be the cruel, violent machine takeover of the earth dreamed by sci-fi authors and film-makers. These hyper-intelligent beings will become as dependent on the fitness of the planet as we are. They’ll need the planetary coolant system of Gaia to guard them from the increasing heat of sunlight as much as we perform. And Gaia depends upon organic life. We will be partners within this project.

It is very important, Lovelock argues, which the intelligence of Earth survives and prospers. He will not think you can find intelligent aliens, so we will be the only beings with the capacity of understanding the cosmos. Probably, he speculates, the novacene could even be the start of a process which will finally result in intelligence suffusing the entire cosmos. At this 100, James Lovelock has produced the main and compelling function of his life.