The Age of AI: And Our Human Future

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.

The first half is very instructive with respect to describing AI and AGI and placing their likely impact on humanity in perspective. I also think the geopolitical impact of AI is well presented. I thought the second half was a little repetitive with respect to several themes concerning a nuanced management of AI. Overall, I learned a lot from the book and recommend it to other readers interested in the subject.

The Age of AI: And Our Human Future is an incredible read that dives deep into how artificial intelligence is changing our world. What I loved about this book is how the authors combine their unique perspectives. Kissinger brings a historical and philosophical lens, Schmidt offers insights from his time as Google’s CEO, and Huttenlocher adds depth with his expertise in AI. Together, they tackle some big questions: How is AI shaping industries and global power? What happens to human decision-making when machines can think faster than we can? They explain things in a way that’s easy to follow, even if you’re not a tech expert. This book isn’t just about the technology. It’s also about the future of humanity. It forces you to think about how we adapt to living in a world where machines are becoming more intelligent and independent and makes you question your own existence. If you’re curious about the future, how AI is reshaping the world, and what it means for us as humans, this book is a must-read. Thoughtful, engaging, and surprisingly approachable—I highly recommend it!

This is yet another book on how to keep ever-more-powerful AI beneficial for humanity. Although it carefully and eloquently discusses many important issues, it is disappointingly lacking in concrete suggestions for what to do and not do. Instead, it's main suggestion seems to be "just put people like us in charge and trust us – and we'll figure it out for the rest of you". Indeed, a key message at the end of the book is that the US should grant great power to a new national AI commission containing people just like Kissinger, Schmidt and Huttenlocher, "from the highest levels of government, business and academia". This is a book review rather than political commentary, so it is up to the reader rather than me to assess the wisdom of letting leaders from Google and Facebook shape our AI legislation. However, from a purely literary point of view, the irony is jarring when the book discusses the risks of big tech undermining democracy and working ever closer with government. Here is a brief summary of the book. The first three chapters present a brief history of information technology and artificial intelligence and its societal impact. The authors briefly raise the possibility that artificial general intelligence (AGI) may one day reach human capability across the board, but don't discuss the oft-raised concerns that this may engender extreme inequality, an Orwellian surveillance state or human extinction. The 4th chapter tackles global network platforms. It provides an interesting review of ever-larger platforms such as Facebook, Google, Uber and TikTok and their increasingly geopolitical implications. It would have been interesting to see more discussions of current controversies, for examples arguments for and against monopoly-busting, and discussion of the tradeoffs between content moderation and anti-disinformation on one hand versus censorship and propaganda on the other. The 5th chapter covers military AI. It contains interesting historical parallels, to which Henry Kissinger presumably contributed. It highlights risks of arms races and inadvertent AI-fueled escalation, and states that "a sober effort at AI arms control is not at odds with national security; it is an attempt to ensure that security is pursued and achieved in the context of a human future". Yet it again lacks concrete suggestions – for example, it does not express support for an international ban on lethal autonomous weapons which decide whom to kill without human intervention, or mention that this position is supported by the International Committee of the Red Cross and enjoys broad support among AI researchers. They merely suggest that "governments of technologically advanced countries should explore the challenges of mutual restraint", which would presumably let any country or company legally produce whatever cheap lethal autonomous weapons they wish to sell. The 6th chapter discusses the implications of powerful future AI for human identity. Although it argues that "our emphasis may need to shift from the centrality of human reason to the centrality to human dignity and autonomy", it would have been interesting to see arguments for how this autonomy can be retained in a society where even more decisions are made by ever smarter machines. It claims that AI and humans will become equal partners in many areas, without explaining how this can remain true if AGI is attained and keeps improving. The authors argue that "AI intermediation that prevents misinformation and disinformation will be crucial", without clarifying what or who will decide what is true – a timely free-speech question given that Huttenlocher's MIT just made national news by canceling an astronomy lecturer for writing a Newsweek article unrelated to his research. As mentioned, the last chapter makes a very concrete recommendation: that the US create a powerful AI commission with members like the authors. The proposed commission sounds a lot like the recently announced NAIAC, but with added powers, and it will be interesting to see if this book helps any of them get on it. The book consistently portrays the greatest threats to democratic societies as coming from others: from China, from U.S. citizens spreading misinformation, etc. They don't say much about the oft-discussed threats posed by the power centers they themselves represent. This would have been interesting given Kissinger's track record of toppling democratically elected governments and Google's and MIT's track record in arbitrating free speech. The book begs a very interesting question: If there is to be a powerful AI commission, whom would *you* trust to lead it and look after your interests?

It's not every day that a book you're about to read announces that a new epoch has begun. This book does exactly that, then it backs up that claim with concrete examples of how this happened without your being aware of it. The epoch will probably be called the age of artificial intelligence, or “The AI Age” for short. The first concrete example is a program that plays chess at the highest level possible. This program isn't the one you heard about years ago that finally was able to consistently beat chess grandmasters. Though that was a milestone, it wasn't an epoch-making one. This AI program beat the most powerful chess-winning programs, and not by just a little. The victories were complete blowouts. What's more, the chess experts who analyzed the program's moves were at a loss to figure out how it won. This book explains how this computer was trained to play chess differently. A second contrete example is a program that discovered a new drug, Halicin, that can be used to treat patients infected with one of several bacteria strains that resist treatment with other anti-bacteria drugs. Without this AI program. the cost would have been way too high. There was only one molecule that had the unique properties necessary to be effective. Still another example was an AI-style program that Google used to find how to cut its cooling costs for its ultra-powerful servers that it uses. Expert engineers had already improved energy-efficiency to the best of their ability. AI found ways to cut Google's another 40%. The chess AI doesn't affect many ordinary people. The Halicin AI also will affect a relatively few, albeit with life-saving potential. But a cost-saving AI would benefit a much greater proportion of the general population. However, its benefits are only half the story of AI. Risks are also present – risks so dire that they threaten to scuttle AI's rise to prominence. Indeed, the book's main thrust is how we might control the risks so that we can harvest AI's benefits as fully and safely as possible. A lot of thorny problems remain to be solved – which the book describes – before that can happen. The book isn't perfect. It has three authors. This seems to have resulted, at times, in more repetition than necessary, though at other times it gives greater perspective on various aspects of AI. The book has a heavy overlay of philosophical musings about how AI has given glipses into a here-before hidden nature of reality. I found some of these philosophical discussions hard to grasp, especially those that reference Immanual Kant whose writings always seem to be unable to penetrate through my incomprehension. Quite a bit of the book seems written for policy managers in business, government and universities, but there is enough directed at a general audience, including myself, to attract our attention. I'm glad of this because general audiences have a huge influence on policies by virtue of our election choices, our purchase choices, our school attendances, and our classroom interactions. All of these will shape the world going forward. (This review is of the Kindle 2021 edition which has an afterword that covers new developments into 2022.)

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.

The Age of AI is the future, and it’s coming way too fast. The human race has never been more challenged. We are all about to make some huge decisions. It is almost a magisterium for humanity's life in the Fourth Industrial Revolution age. It is written by thought leaders of the highest-level, each in their respective fields. The age of artificial intelligence is here. The book was not written only for geeks and software engineers. It’s a good core class for every MBA program. It introduces aspects from the humanities in every chapter. It has biblical flair to it. It stitches history and augurs the future, all interwoven in every chapter. The Age of AI is a scholarly document authored by distinguished architects that formed the reality in which live. Each is an intellectual visionary in his field. The book serves readers from the two ends of the rainbow. At one end are the STEM scholars who get a refresher view in the history and future of the humanities in the Western civilization. On the other end are the scholars in the humanities and social studies who get introduced to the cutting edge technology explained in easy to understand language. It is a recommended text to be required in any college major tracks for students in their senior year. Be they in philosophy, political science, law, art and design, engineering, computer sciences, mathematics or accounting. Humanity as we know it, is already being divided into two classes. Those are the AI literate and the AI ignorant classes. The outcome results in a difference in economic status and standard of living. The book has its limitations. Some of its technical contents have already fallen behind since it went to press. Certain influential players in the field of AI are not mentioned. For example, Amazon Web Services and Apple products. China is a major player in AI R&D and advances but is barely mentioned. China’ AI accomplishments today, have possibly exceeded the U.S. in AI technologies. There is a growing chasm around the world between people who are AI literate and other folks who haven’t heard of - AI oblivious. Soon the AI literate folks will have much greater earning power than the AI ignorant. Civilian occupational fields such as financial derivative, legal information, library services, meteorology, air traffic control, car repair, travel guidance, airplane pilots and more have AI integrated into their working devices. A new social order will emerge. The AI-haves already wield greater earning power than the AI-have-not. The future will see a different human identity. Humans will have to strike a partnership with their AI-integrated machines. Last words – study this book - be AI Literate.

Public fascination with artificial intelligence (AI) has only increased since this book was published in 2021. AI technologies, such as Chat GPT, have entered mainstream society and are being used in everyday business work. Publicly, however, leaders from philosophy, business, and government do not appear yet ready to grapple with the deep human questions involved. For example, when do we defer to AI bots over human agency? Are we ready for AI tools of war – both offensively and defensively? How will this affect how we view ourselves as creatures of reason? In this book, Henry Kissinger, a dean at MIT Daniel Huttenlocher, and the CEO of Google Eric Schmidt grapple with similar issues at length. The depth of thought in this work cannot be contained in a short book review. Needless to say, they cover the foreseeable issues through a historical lens. AI technology seems to portend an epochal transition in human civilization, much like the advent of the printing press. A big distinction is between assistive AI, under human direction, and autonomous AI, which directs us. Also in this realm, the prospect of artificial general intelligence – that is, a sentient computer or android – looms large and frighteningly realistic. AI can apply to many fields of human activity, like the military, healthcare, business, education, and scientific research. These examples and more are explicitly examined throughout this book. Not all are good, however. The prospect of AI weapons scares me deeply. United States policy is not to develop autonomous weapons, but what about other countries? Is there any plausible way to defend against such war? It seems inevitable that someone is going to try using such a weapon eventually, even if they are a rogue terrorist group. Do we have to go through another World War I to learn our lesson? This book offers more intelligent questions than firm answers, and that is the authors’ apparent intention. We are at the early stages of mainstream adoption of this technology, and questions abound while certainty is scarce. As such, reading this socially focused book behooves anyone interested in seriously forecasting the repercussions on the world. I develop software for a living, on the micro-level, so a treatment like this on the macro-level is helpful to see coding’s impact down the road. My experience tells me that the issues raised are spot-on, and the treatment is even and balanced. As humans, are we ready for this? No, but reading this book will make a reader more prepared.