Book Reviews
HUMAN COMPATIBLE: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control
“What if we succeed?” Specifically, what happens if we, the AI scientists of the world, succeed in building ever-smarter, ever-more-capable machines, eventually rivaling or surpassing the intelligence of humans? Will the world be better off, or worse? That’s the...
Book Reviews: The Ethical Algorithm and A Human Algorithm
Two buttoned-down AI scientists and a ‘can’t we all just get along?’ hippie walk into a bar . . .
OK, please forgive the click-bait opening sentence, but after reading these two very different books about the very same subject, I couldn’t help myself.
TOOLS AND WEAPONS: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age
Leaders in both tech and government will be talking about this book, and grappling with it, for a very long time. And it often surprises — not because its opinions are startling, but because hearing them from a tech leader is so uncommon.
THE MIND AND THE MACHINE: What it Means to Be Human, and Why It Matters
What does it mean to be human? Or, put more narrowly in light of the advances of AI and neuroscience, should we think of humans as simply a complex form of biochemical computer? Is the human mind, including its sense of self-consciousness, really nothing more than the...
DEEP MEDICINE: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again
It turns out that schizophrenia is not just a medical condition, it’s also an apt way to think about Eric Topol’s new book, DEEP MEDICINE: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again. Schizophrenia, after all, is characterized by inconsistent and...
THE BIG NINE: How the Tech Titans & Their Thinking Machines Could Warp Humanity
In The Big Nine, Amy Webb visits the AI-driven near-future world to which nine tech titans — and two governments — are together giving birth. More precisely, Webb projects three future scenarios for how AI development is likely to play out. Only one — and clearly the...