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The Age of AI: And Our Human Future Hardcover – November 2, 2021

4.2 out of 5 stars 2,575 ratings

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Three of the world’s most accomplished and deep thinkers come together to explore Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the way it is transforming human society—and what this technology means for us all.

Generative AI is filling the internet with false information. Artists, writers, and many other professionals are in fear of their jobs. AI is discovering new medicines, running military drones, and transforming the world around us—yet we do not understand the decisions it makes, and we don’t know how to control them.

In 
The Age of AI, three leading thinkers have come together to consider how AI will change our relationships with knowledge, politics, and the societies in which we live. The Age of AI is an essential roadmap to our present and our future, an era unlike any that has come before.

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AI will change our relationship with knowledge, politics, and the societies in which we live

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About the Author

Henry A. Kissinger served as the 56th Secretary of State from September 1973 until January 1977. He also served as the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs from January 1969 until November 1975. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977, and the Medal of Liberty in 1986. Until his passing in 2023, he was Chairman of Kissinger Associates, Inc., an international consulting firm.
 
Eric Schmidt is an accomplished technologist, entrepreneur and philanthropist. As Google’s Chief Executive Officer, he pioneered Google’s transformation from a Silicon Valley startup to a global leader in technology. He served as Google’s Chief Executive Officer and Chairman from 2001-2011, Executive Chairman from 2011-2018 and most recently as Technical Advisor from 2018-2020. Under his leadership Google dramatically scaled its infrastructure and diversified its product offerings while maintaining a strong culture of innovation. Prior to his career at Google, Eric held leadership roles at Novell and Sun Microsystems, Inc.
 
Daniel Huttenlocher is the inaugural dean of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing. Previously he served as founding Dean and Vice Provost of Cornell Tech, the digital technology oriented graduate school created by Cornell University in New York City. He has a mix of academic and industry experience, as a Computer Science faculty member at Cornell and MIT, researcher and manager at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), and CTO of a fintech startup. He currently serves as chair of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation board and as a member of the Corning Inc. and Amazon.com boards.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Little, Brown and Company
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 2, 2021
  • Edition ‏ : ‎ First Edition
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 272 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0316273805
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0316273800
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.04 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.35 x 1.25 x 9.55 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 out of 5 stars 2,575 ratings

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4.2 out of 5 stars
2,575 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find the book provides good insights and is worth the trouble, with positive feedback about its pacing. However, the writing quality receives mixed reviews, with some finding it well written while others describe it as vague. Moreover, the AI content receives mixed reactions, with some appreciating the high-level overview while others find it superficial.

7 customers mention "Value for money"7 positive0 negative

Customers find the book worth their time and money.

"...book does warn us about these issues, and for that reason it is worth reading. But it does not make this point strongly enough, in my view...." Read more

"...The book is well worth reading, but I did find it redundant on numerous occasions. Still, read it for your own good." Read more

"...This book is definitely worth a read!" Read more

"...This is a formidable gamble and I am deeply worried with the authors that we may not meet this challenge, mainly for our insatiable needs for greed...." Read more

6 customers mention "Pacing"6 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the pacing of the book, with one describing it as a masterful work and another noting how thoroughly it covers the subject matter.

"...It does a great job in slicing and dicing vegetables. But it can cut flesh, when used carelessly. The tool is not good or bad in itself...." Read more

"This is both a masterful work and an exercise in folly...." Read more

"I felt that the authors dealt with the subject fairly, and fairly thoroughly...." Read more

"Excellent, thought-provoking book about how AI is loudly changing the world, and quietly even changing what it means to be human — and how this..." Read more

31 customers mention "Writing quality"18 positive13 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the writing quality of the book, with some finding it well written while others describe it as vague.

"...Chapter 2 is particularly delightful, with sentences brimming with such verve that one wishes it never ends...." Read more

""Show me, don't tell me". Too many big ideas in every paragraph. Just read the Afterword...that suggests an impact I could understand...sorta." Read more

"...What I loved about this book is how the authors combine their unique perspectives...." Read more

"...This is just sloppy writing. More filler content...." Read more

8 customers mention "Ai content"3 positive5 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the AI content in the book, with some appreciating its high-level overview and potential perils, while others find it lacking in depth.

"...In the end, AI is a software tool...." Read more

"Good discussion of the potential benefits and potential perils of AI and why it is important to consider and discuss these factors." Read more

"This is a very vague and high level overview of AI, written for someone who has never heard of AI before...." Read more

"...The technical material about AI is too vague to teach much. I found that about half way through I was just flipping pages." Read more

14 customers mention "Content quality"3 positive11 negative

Customers criticize the book's content quality, describing it as boring and superficial, with one customer noting its heavy philosophical musings.

"...The book has a heavy overlay of philosophical musings about how AI has given glipses into a here-before hidden nature of reality...." Read more

"...This is just sloppy writing. More filler content...." Read more

"...The book is well worth reading, but I did find it redundant on numerous occasions. Still, read it for your own good." Read more

"A very timely book on a possibly timeless topic! It will probably join the critic of reason as one of the early classics on the AI age." Read more

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Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on March 19, 2023
    What is this book? A treaty? A compendium? An impassioned plea? Or a sales pitch drawing its unique proposition from philosophy, history, and humanities littered with revelations of opportunities and doom?

    It is everything, and more.

    As of writing, GPT-4 is the rave in artificial intelligence (AI). But the world has already had intimations of AI's power through its predecessors, particularly ChatGPT. In a deluge of information, it is necessary to have a voice of authority and wisdom to explain the phenomenon we face. This book fits the bill as a pamphlet that conceptually explains what AI is, without the technicalities that may baffle non-technical readers. (I have enjoyed an interview between one of the authors, Eric Schmidt and Alexandr Wang, on the subject, which inspired my purchase of the book).

    As a compendium, the book catalogues the development in computing and situates modern AI as the culmination of years of progress. It posits that we have created a thing with processing power that outstrips human cognition and can capture aspects of reality beyond human detection. AI can now beat us, quite literally, at our own game, as seen in chess, where an AI trained on the rules of the game augments itself to make independent and more compelling moves beyond human comprehension. Similarly, AI can discover new antibiotics in record time by merely being exposed to fundamental principles. Chess and medical breakthroughs are frequent references in the book, demonstrating the extent to which AI would affect domains once reserved for humans.

    Chapter 2 is particularly delightful, with sentences brimming with such verve that one wishes it never ends. It explores centuries of sociocultural and sociopolitical forces that paved the way for AI and pranced through the evolution of human ingenuity, reason, and intellect. The chapter posits that AI's ability to upend every aspect of society surpasses the revolutions wrought by the printing press and electricity. These earlier technologies not only introduced new forms; they disrupted every aspect of society. The printing press bestowed new roles on the Western individual by wresting powers away from the Church and equipping the individual - facilitated by the Protestant agitations - with scholarly access to the divine. This psychological shift in the Western mind - sufficiently explored in Joseph Henrich's work, The Weirdest People in the World - launched the Renaissance, ushering in flourishing in arts, architecture, literature, and civic participation, ensuring the greatness of Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and others. The authors contend that AI is destined to follow a similar trajectory.

    The philosophical underpinnings of AI are captivating. The authors, probing AI's capture of reality, align it with Wittgenstein's view of making meaning through familiar connections rather than reducing reality to mechanistic explanations. Hence, the neural networks that inspire AI in mimicking the structure of the human brain place it far from mere computations of cause and effect, or garbage in, garbage out.

    “To enable machine learning, what mattered was the overlap between various representations of a thing, not its ideal — in philosophical terms, Wittgenstein, not Plato. The modern field of machine learning — of programs that learn through experience — was born.”

    Still, on philosophy, the book wonders if we are equipped to deal with our new fate. If AI can capture reality outside human conception, how do we retain our identity when perceptions would be determined by something beyond us? The authors concede that civilisation has been primarily created and sustained through the dynamics of Faith and Reason, and AI is designing a new form. It is a difficult notion to digest, since phenomena that thinkers and philosophers have grappled with, e.g., consciousness, divinity, nature/nurture, would become more challenging to comprehend.

    There is a lot of caution in the book. The authors warn that where nuclear weapon is the most dreadful of human arsenals, AI surpasses it by an order of magnitude. This apocalyptic view is further compounded by the difficulty of designing effective verification systems for a rather inscrutable technology. It is to wonder what we have gotten ourselves into. Human ingenuity has birthed a hybrid of saint and devil. Where nuclear weapon is under international regulations in which nations with nuclear capabilities are under the watchful eyes of post-WWII and post-Soviet accords, how do we police something so insanely hard to detect, easily distributed, and accessible? Nuclear deterrence has so far saved us from annihilation. How do we protect ourselves from something that possesses the capacity to "transform conventional, nuclear, and cyber weapons strategy"? This makes the book an entreaty, inviting governments, policy wonks, and military thinkers to convene and hash out red lines that would ensure responsible applications.

    For me, the positives outweigh the negatives if regulations are in place. And we must be careful to avoid stifling innovation under the guise of potential misuse. Moreover, as AI accelerates prosperity and instigates breakthroughs, how will it impact the global south? Will it leave a section of humanity behind while perpetuating historical patterns of economic inequities, a fact that Emad Mostaque of Stability AI has been vocal about? The book hints at it, but it would take a separate publication to articulate this concern.

    Overall, it is a delightful book written by those who should write about AI and society.
    80 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on December 8, 2021
    Format: KindleVerified Purchase
    I quote these two passages from the book, which are spot on:

    1. “AI does not possess what we call common sense…” (p. 69)

    2. “Associations between aspects of inputs and outputs based on supervised or reinforcement learning are very different from human understanding… This brittleness is also a reflection of AI’s lack of self-awareness. An AI is not sentient. It does not know what it does not know.” (p. 69)

    To make these abstractions more concrete, I add this horrific example of Artificial Stupidity.

    Engineers at Boeing created software algorithms to help prevent the new 737 MAX from stalling during flight by automatically pointing the nose down. The software was needed to counteract the tendency of the MAX aircraft’s nose to pitch upwards during certain conditions, due to more powerful jet engines. Pilots at that time did not know about the MCAS software, nor about its dependency on a single external input. If that indicator sent false signals about the angle of attack, and the MCAS software did not know about the faulty data, it did what it was designed to do—point the plane’s nose downward. This was catastrophic in two cases, resulting in crashes that killed 346 human beings.

    In the end, AI is a software tool. All computer software operates on bits of information, and those bit collections can represent whatever we want them to. But we must always keep in mind that they are REPRESENTATIONS of reality, not reality itself. The signals from the faulty angle-of-attack sensor on the 737 MAX misrepresented reality. The pilots tried to correct the situation, but not knowing about the software’s design, they apparently did not disable MCAS or at least not soon enough, and it crashed those two planes.

    MCAS did what it was programmed to do. MCAS felt no remorse about this human tragedy. It did not even know.

    This is Artificial Stupidity. Discovery to Earth: Who will be the astronaut to disconnect HAL, the AI software run amok in Arthur C. Clarke’s novel (2001: A Space Odyssey?)

    Tools can be used for both good and bad purposes. I use a very good chef’s knife daily, and I keep its blade sharp and honed regularly. It does a great job in slicing and dicing vegetables. But it can cut flesh, when used carelessly. The tool is not good or bad in itself. How it is used by humans can be good or bad. Understanding how the chef knife is designed, and what it is capable of, is extremely important in order to use it properly and safely.

    Computers and the software they run (just bit patterns after all) are no different. Lack of understanding these fundamentals can lead us to Artificial Stupidity. Let’s hope it doesn’t destroy us as we learn what AI can do, especially when we don’t understand what AI is doing and why. This book does warn us about these issues, and for that reason it is worth reading. But it does not make this point strongly enough, in my view. I keep remembering The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, who used magic he did not understand (Walt Disney’s animation, based on Goethe’s original poem of 1797). That magic spell resulted in a situation run amok. In that fantasy, the wizard returned in time to stop the disaster from continuing.

    Who will be the wizards for disconnecting AI when it runs amok? Sadly, it’s already happening in our global social networks.
    140 people found this helpful
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  • kernel32
    5.0 out of 5 stars Authoritative and noteworthy
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 3, 2021
    AI is well up the hype-scale at the moment and this book will explain a lot about why that is. Kissinger and Schmidt have sufficient experience that we should take note of their views. Being authored by a policy strategist and technology manager, together with an academic, gives the first indication of the potential readership. Politicians and policy strategists will find this enlightening and essential reading about opportunities and threats: there are numerous pointers throughout as to what “should” be done, but it will be up to governments and standards setting bodies to decide what is actually done. Equally, technologists will benefit from a wider view of what the technology can do. In addition, sociologists, psychologists, ethicists and philosophers will find plenty to think about in their fields. It is written in an accessible style requiring neither expertise in AI nor on policy and therefore is of general interest as well. It is a book that informs and makes you think, whatever your interest or viewpoint. You do not have to agree with everything: debate will improve responses. In the UK the government’s National AI Strategy (NAIS) is at best a work-in-progress with more hype and less insight than this book. No doubt other countries will also have similar problems grappling with some of the implications. That is somewhat disappointing given that this software-driven digital capability has been evolving for well over 20 years as the progression of broadband and processing power has enabled spectacular results.
  • Alan
    5.0 out of 5 stars Very good read.
    Reviewed in Germany on February 2, 2024
    Nicely balanced 👌. I'm sure the premises discussed will need regular review and update as time passes and perspectives change.
  • 茂&次郎
    4.0 out of 5 stars So insightful to think of daily life in the new era
    Reviewed in Japan on June 7, 2023
    The authors say we are going to have a new life where we will have to rely on an AI's answer that an expert may not be able to explain because AI's capability is higher than humans. This will change many aspects of societies around the world.
    The authors explain carefully and comprehensively.
    Many people, whichever jobs they have, at any ages, can read and find this book is valuable.
  • panzerig
    5.0 out of 5 stars AI the third wheel in addition to faith and reason throughout history!
    Reviewed in Italy on October 9, 2024
    A beautiful book in order to choose the best approach to AI. Complete trusting, partnership or limitation! This Isa the question!
  • ROGER MEDINA TURON
    5.0 out of 5 stars Al grano
    Reviewed in Mexico on September 8, 2023
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    Muy buen libro
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