One needs self-doubt to have knowledge but self-confidence to act.
Page 218
In a nutshell
To quote from the foreword penned by Niall Ferguson, “Henry Kissinger never retired. Nor did he ever stop worrying about the future of humanity. Such a man was hardly going to ignore one of the most consequential technological breakthroughs in his later life: the development and deployment of generative artificial intelligence. Indeed the task of understanding the implications of this nascent technology consumed a significant portion of Kissinger’s final years.”
In Genesis, Kissinger’s final work, co-authored with technologists Craig Mundie and Eric Schmidt, they set out to present both the opportunities and challenges that AI presents.
Book Club Notes
In the last few years AI has risen quickly. A few years ago the concept seemed foreign, and yet today AI’s influence can be seen almost everywhere. With the average AI supercomputer already processing information 120 million times faster than the human brain, there isn’t a better time to educate yourself on what AI really is and what it means for the future of humanity.
When choosing a learning book that tackles such complex topics I always consider who the authors are. Genesis was the last work of Henry Kissinger, co-authored by technologists Craig Mundie and Eric Shmidt. Their CVs speak for themselves and makes the words in this book more pertinent.
This book is equal parts education and food for thought. It’s filled with knowledge, big ideas and big questions. It is not an easy read, but undoubtedly an important one.
There were many takeaways from this book, and many that floated way over my head but to choose one, I appreciated how they distinguished AI from the computers we all use every day.
What is the difference between AI and a computer?
“What principally distinguishes AI from ordinary computers is its mapping of the world is not programmed, but learned. In traditional software programming, a human-created algorithm instructs a machine in how to transform a set of inputs into outputs. In machine learning, by contrast, human-created algorithms tell the machine only how to improve itself, allowing the machine to design its own mappings for the input-to-output transformation.”
Human feedback helps AI machines refine their algorithms but it is the machine’s job to look for patterns and assign importance to the data it is trained on. What is equally interesting as it is concerning, is that once an AI machine is trained, it doesn’t publish its internal mathematical schema. What this in effect means is that we are allowing AI to expand human knowledge, but we are accepting the knowledge as true without fully understanding the processes by which this knowledge was arrived at.
Read If
You want to learn about AI and the kinds of opportunities and challenges it will create.
Rating
Writing – 10/10
Applicability – 10/10
Timelessness – 8/10
Shareability – 10/10
The Nitty Gritty
Published by: John Murray Press, Distributed by Jonathon Ball
Genre: Non-Fiction, Tech
ISBN: 978-1-399-81911-4
Pages: 218
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A note on our book ratings
Readability: How easy is it to read and understand what the author is saying? Do you need a dictionary or PhD to understand it?
Writing: How well written is the book? Do you find yourself wowed by the writing or unimpressed?
Applicability: How applicable is this book to daily life? Is there enough advice and actions that are easy to start applying?
Timelessness: Is the content of the book timeless or is it something that in a few years won’t have relevance?
Shareability: How likely are you to share the book?
