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Rebels of Reason: The Long Road from Aristotle to ChatGPT and AI's Heroes Who Kept the Faith
We live in the Age of AI—built by misfits, dreamers, and outcasts you’ve never heard of.
ChatGPT wasn’t just code. It was a moment in time. The dawn of the Age of AI.
But this new era wasn’t born in Silicon Valley. It was built over centuries by unlikely eccentrics, visionaries, and misfits who defied convention, challenged institutions, and refused to quit. Rebels like Walter Pitts, the homeless teen who opened the door to neural networks, and Fei-Fei Li, the overlooked godmother of computer vision.
The story runs through Alan Turing’s fight against the Nazis, DARPA-funded war labs, and a decades-long trail of gameplay, from chess to checkers to AlphaGo. There’s Janet Baker, whose voice tech that gave us Siri was lost to Belgian swindlers and the moment Google’s arrogance let a scrappy startup race ahead.
Along the way, Rebels of Reason peels back the curtain on how AI actually works, why it feels like magic, and what it really means to live in an age of thinking machines.
This isn’t the story of ChatGPT. It’s the sweeping, human saga of how we got here . . . and the brilliant weirdos who made it possible.
ChatGPT wasn’t just code. It was a moment in time. The dawn of the Age of AI.
But this new era wasn’t born in Silicon Valley. It was built over centuries by unlikely eccentrics, visionaries, and misfits who defied convention, challenged institutions, and refused to quit. Rebels like Walter Pitts, the homeless teen who opened the door to neural networks, and Fei-Fei Li, the overlooked godmother of computer vision.
The story runs through Alan Turing’s fight against the Nazis, DARPA-funded war labs, and a decades-long trail of gameplay, from chess to checkers to AlphaGo. There’s Janet Baker, whose voice tech that gave us Siri was lost to Belgian swindlers and the moment Google’s arrogance let a scrappy startup race ahead.
Along the way, Rebels of Reason peels back the curtain on how AI actually works, why it feels like magic, and what it really means to live in an age of thinking machines.
This isn’t the story of ChatGPT. It’s the sweeping, human saga of how we got here . . . and the brilliant weirdos who made it possible.
466 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 7, 2025
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