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Basic AI: A Human Guide to Artificial Intelligence
In Basic AI leading futurist David L. Shrier explains how generative AI works, where it's heading and how it will impact on everyday life and work.
- GenresTechnology
222 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 15, 2024
Picked up on a whim just to stimulate some interest in the field. Some vaguely interesting concepts that are sparsely dotted throughout the book.
The telling sign for me is that he spends a lot of time giving his academic career back slaps which is irrelevant and jarring. My MIT course was studied by 20% of all Singaporean fintech employees. I don’t care.
Then there’s one page on prompt engineering. Which could have had a paragraph itself - background, use cases, tips. Nope just 1 page and it’s back to MIT courses.
However there’s still interesting elements in the book and although I was perhaps looking for something more technical it still has some cool discussion topics about the future of AI and the societal impact of that.
The telling sign for me is that he spends a lot of time giving his academic career back slaps which is irrelevant and jarring. My MIT course was studied by 20% of all Singaporean fintech employees. I don’t care.
Then there’s one page on prompt engineering. Which could have had a paragraph itself - background, use cases, tips. Nope just 1 page and it’s back to MIT courses.
However there’s still interesting elements in the book and although I was perhaps looking for something more technical it still has some cool discussion topics about the future of AI and the societal impact of that.
February 5, 2025
Don't buy this book because it is unhelpful and annoying.
It's unhelpful because it's not explained well and the points made are intuitive, so not a good use of time.
For example, he fails to explain the difference between machine learning, neural networks and deep learning. He talks about the topics but doesn't clearly delineate the differences. I'd say that's the purpose of a book on Basic AI.
Or in Chapter 4 he mentions that to succeed in an AI future we need cognitive flexibility. He provides 5 general principles how to do this, but doesn't actually establish exactly what he means by cognitive flexibility. For the principles themselves, they include basic ideas like the power of practice or creative exploration.
It's also annoying because of the amount of self-serving references. As others have mentioned. The author probably intends to simply provide a reference for many of his experiences and his colleagues. But it comes across as constantly reminding readers of every big brand university project he's taught or collaborated on but provides little value to the reader in terms of context or illustrative examples.
The other example of it being annoying depends on your political tastes. He indirectly shares many of his political views which I think are distracting, one-sided or unnecessary for the topic.
I regret buying a physical copy and marking it up as a I read it because I can't return it.
It's unhelpful because it's not explained well and the points made are intuitive, so not a good use of time.
For example, he fails to explain the difference between machine learning, neural networks and deep learning. He talks about the topics but doesn't clearly delineate the differences. I'd say that's the purpose of a book on Basic AI.
Or in Chapter 4 he mentions that to succeed in an AI future we need cognitive flexibility. He provides 5 general principles how to do this, but doesn't actually establish exactly what he means by cognitive flexibility. For the principles themselves, they include basic ideas like the power of practice or creative exploration.
It's also annoying because of the amount of self-serving references. As others have mentioned. The author probably intends to simply provide a reference for many of his experiences and his colleagues. But it comes across as constantly reminding readers of every big brand university project he's taught or collaborated on but provides little value to the reader in terms of context or illustrative examples.
The other example of it being annoying depends on your political tastes. He indirectly shares many of his political views which I think are distracting, one-sided or unnecessary for the topic.
I regret buying a physical copy and marking it up as a I read it because I can't return it.
May 6, 2024
Came across this book when browsing the biggest local bookstore and the back page introduction was quite good. Also it's probably one of the latest books written on this topic (published early 2024) so was hoping to get some fresh insights. The first third was quite promising as it talked about latest AI topics like manipulating elections and public discourse through social media bots etc. Second part became a bit tiring as focus was mostly on his academic teaching topics and how different topics in the courses scope are related to AI, it was neither technical nor ground-setting (i.e. Michio Kaku). The book was also suprisingly short (around 200 pages). There was a separate chapter about what jobs would be more resilient to AI automation when considering career planning during upcoming few decades, I did not find it very appealing that this boils down to enternainters, sommeliers and caretakers (we should strive for more).
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews