It's that time of year again! Time to sit back, unwind, and dive into a terrifying, dystopian book akin to the Matrix (joking).
Whether it's ChatGPT, LLMs, NPUs--AI seems to be everywhere we look and yet there's still a great deal of confusion and fear out there. The books below put it all into perspective by asking and answering big questions about the future, and succinctly outlining how we got here in the first place.
Taming Silicon Valley – How We Can Ensure that AI Works for Us
By Gary Marcus
In Taming Silicon Valley, Gary Marcus, one of the most trusted voices in AI, explains that we still have a choice. And that the decisions we make now about AI will shape our next century.
A Brief History of Intelligence – Evolution, AI, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains
By Max Bennett
In the last decade, capabilities of artificial intelligence that had long been the realm of science fiction have, for the first time, become our reality. AI is now able to produce original art, identify tumors in pictures, and even steer our cars. And yet, large gaps remain in what modern AI systems can achieve—indeed, human brains still easily perform intellectual feats that we can’t replicate in AI systems. How is it possible that AI can beat a grandmaster at chess but can’t effectively load a dishwasher?
The Singularity is Nearer – When We Merge with AI
By Ray Kurzweil
In this entirely new book Ray Kurzweil brings a fresh perspective to advances toward the Singularity—assessing his 1999 prediction that AI will reach human level intelligence by 2029 and examining the exponential growth of technology—that, in the near future, will expand human intelligence a millionfold and change human life forever.
The Atomic Human - What Makes Us Unique in the Age of AI
By Neil D. Lawrence
The greatest fear of AI is not that it rules out digital lives but that it displaces human intelligence entirely. If artificial intelligence takes over decision-making what, then, is unique and irreplaceable about human intelligence? The Atomic Human is a journey of discovery to the core of what it is to be human, in search of the qualities that cannot be replaced by the machine.
