I Am Not a Robot: My Year Using AI to Do (Almost) Everything

by Joanna Stern

What happens when intelligent machines aren’t just in our pockets but are also driving our cars, making our decisions, folding our laundry, and educating our kids? You’ve heard the hype: AI will make us healthier, give every child a personalized tutor, run our businesses more efficiently, return hours of free time to our overworked brains, and make discoveries previously unimagined by humankind. The AI future is going to be unlike any other technological revolu­tion. But what does that really mean? And will AI truly make life better? To find out, award-winning journalist Joanna Stern surrendered her life to artificial intelligence for one year. The results are both hilarious and unsettling. I Am Not a Robot is like a time machine trip to the very near future, where AI promises to be your doctor, chauffeur, teacher, masseuse, coworker, thera­pist, financial planner, chef, housekeeper, and even . . . romantic partner. Your colleague might be using ChatGPT to write emails at work, but Joanna used AI tools and robots to do household chores, to manage her health, and to transport her family on vacation. If there was a decision to make or a task to do, she let AI go first. Along the way, she conducted exclusive interviews with the tech leaders building this future, then reported back from the front lines as your funny, no-nonsense tour guide. Of course, tech’s sunny promises never tell the whole story, and that’s what Joanna is here to share. Filled with illustrations and photographs, this book offers less hype, more clarity, and as little jargon as humanly (or robotically) possible. It’s an AI guide for ordinary people—not the tech bros who tried to sell you a cruise to the metaverse or an NFT of a cartoon monkey. This book is not the definitive story, because we’re only a few years into the AI revolution. But after a year of living as a human lab rat, Joanna deliv­ers one of the clearest—and funniest—pictures yet of what’s really happening and what it means for you.

Genres: Nonfiction, Technology, Artificial Intelligence, Memoir, Audiobook, Science, Biography

320 pages, Hardcover

Published May 12, 2026

Reviews

[Miss✧Pickypants ᓚᘏᗢ]

A great read for any of you who are AI-curious! The author, a former WSJ technology reporter, spent a year letting AI infiltrate her life in all the ways it possibly could. She reports back on the hits and misses, as well as informs us on how AI's impact generally improves and worsens things.

The experiment is purely a subjective one but we learn about ways AI can likely improve our lives and where there is still a ways to go. The section on friendship/romance was a bit depressing and the section on education was actually chilling, these are definitely areas that could have real, impactful deficits on humans.

There are short interviews interspersed throughout with AI experts giving their perspectives on AI. What I most appreciated were the different viewpoints from these experts, the fact that there wasn't a total consensus on AI's future gave me some relief humans may not be doomed (but there is a chance). I did happen to read The Infinite Sadness of Small Appliances right after this book. It is a wonderful fictional story of what an AI driven future could look like, sad but also hopeful. Highly recommend it as a follow-up read.

[Graham “Smell the Ink”]

I would not usually read this type of book genre but an article in a Newspaper sparked a memory, having an interest in computers and technology from an early age. I really wanted to know more about AI and maybe an insight into the future.

Having loved technology from the 70’s by way of my parents buying me the Fidelity Chess Challenger 1 which was a basic calculator keypad and an LED display to communicate moves, you needed your own board chess board of course to move the pieces yourself and for the computer. There were various levels of difficulty and once I beat it on the highest level it was time to sell it. Purchased for £35 and sold second hand for £35 which was 3 years after I’d got it. I then moved onto the ZX81 Clive Sinclair computer (1K memory), had to buy the 16K Ram Pack to do anything half decent on it. I remember building my own random cricket game and scoreboard written in BASIC before moving onto COBOL at school and using terminals linked to the local University. Oh what memories.

I wasn’t sure how to rate this book probably because I’ve nothing to compare it against. I enjoyed the flow and the simplicity of the chapters and maybe I wanted more, that said I very much enjoyed reading it and gave me a very basic insight into the world of AI and the various forms of it.

I thought the data centres in the USA amazed me and especially the amount of Electricity and Water they use, that was a draw dropping moment for me.

The human aspects from the author and her thought process was delightful. She comes across as a wonderful human being, mother, daughter, partner and an owner of a beautiful Cavapoo (although she maybe sceptical of that description). I wish her health and happiness in the future as her work ethic is admirable.

Anyway, at least this is not a book review done in AI, it’s too human and personal. I’ll always try to get the better of you BOTS. You might be quick and have a memory like a small eared elephant (can’t be big eared they can cool themselves) but you can’t beat raw Yorkshire compassion, humour and grit.

[Katie Laurence]

My teenager is 100% falling in love with a chatbot

[Teresa]

Interesting and very informative...a bit scary

[Tom Guindy]

I enjoyed it! But felt it was a bit of a light overview- as a tech enthusiast I would’ve liked more detail

[Heather Lang]

4.5 ⭐️

I received an advanced galley of this book from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.

Award-winning journalist Joanna Stern decides to let AI rule her life. From medical tests to smart fridges to autonomous cars, talking stuffies and more, Stern shows us both the positives AI can have on our lives as well as the negatives.
This was the best piece of AI non-fiction I have read yet, which really breaks down the common terms and ideas around AI and makes them more consumable for the layman. Told in both a frank and funny way, we see how the present has been shaped already and what we may expect in the future. It may not be all extra quality time and Jetson-like lives. Stern doesn’t talk to us like we are stupid; instead, she brings us along on this adventure. She asks the questions we all have, especially the hard ones.
I tandem read this, which I recommend or fully in digital and print to fully appreciate the drawings, pictures and other mixed media.

[Laura]

As someone who actively avoids chatbots and AI integrated products (when given the choice) it was interesting to peer into the life of someone doing the opposite. The topics are broad and varied in this book. Stern integrates chatbots as companions and therapists, explores AI’s role in medicine, and explores the development of driverless cars. She brings “robots” into her house, and the results are pathetic at best. It isn’t biting commentary and not remarkably insightful, but it gave me a look into what the Tech Dudes want: a life where I am daily interacting with and building LLMs and GenAI into my life. Overall, the results of her integration seem tepid at best and disturbing at worst. Nothing seems “remarkable” in either direction though Bill Gates etc. keep telling her it will be.
I regularly find myself as more of an outsider with technology these days, and I guess I should prepare my heart for that feeling to amplify.

[Ines Kortebi]

A good read to get you thinking about how you incorporate AI into your daily life (or where you intentionally choose to omit it!).

Written in a very accessible, conversational tone. Joanna Stern really puts herself out there and opens up her life to us and the robots. Fully committed to the experiment, she provides insight on AI use in areas I didn’t even think about (bracelet overhearing all your conversations and transcribing it? Like a dash cam for your life? Do I need that?).

Like all non-fiction, I recommend taking a pause every now and then and reflecting, as opposed to consuming page after page. Let it simmer a bit.

[Shana]

Solid background listening; the most notable chapters are when she pushes past moderate boundaries with concrete examples true to her life, for "journalistic integrity"; salient ones include the breast cancer "AI as the first/second opinion for radiology, her vacation retreat to have a text-based LLM affair (for research, and cleared with her partner), journal entries with collated memory (and what remains offline), and general commitment to the cause.

[Genna Horvath]

I enjoyed Stern’s writing style and little doodles throughout the book (making it feel extra “human”). As someone who is fairly anti-AI, I finished the book feeling both validated in my preconceived opinions and more open to integrating AI into my life.

[Nolan]

If you had the ability to immerse yourself in artificial intelligence — every product, every experiment, every uncomfortable edge — would you run toward it? Or would you shrink from the dour warnings of the very people who build it? Joanna Stern ran headlong into a full year of AI immersion, and the result is a book that changed how I think about a technology I use every day.

Stern's experiment was total. AI served as her therapist, the regulator of her toothbrush, and the archivist of hours of family conversation. It shaped a family vacation: they flew to Phoenix specifically to ride in Waymo's driverless cars. She tested more than 100 AI-based products — necklaces, glasses, therapists, robots — always asking the same anchoring question: Is this better than the human version? That baseline makes the whole book cohere.

She also explored AI companionship, adjusting settings to create a more romantic interaction. She didn't seem particularly titillated by it. What concerned her more was how others misuse that capability — people who form dependencies or lose track of where the relationship ends.

Before diving into her year, she offers a brief, readable history of AI: Alan Turing's test for machine intelligence, John McCarthy coining the term "artificial intelligence" at a 1955 Dartmouth conference, Joseph Weizenbaum's 1966 chatbot Eliza, Deep Blue's 1997 defeat of chess champion Garry Kasparov, the 2002 Roomba, Watson's Jeopardy wins in 2011, and Amazon's Alexa in 2014. She also issues a warning worth heeding: AI is not a monolith. It's a diverse ecosystem of capabilities, and understanding that will save you from a lot of unnecessary disappointment.

Her year unfolds month by month. AI helped manage a conference schedule but couldn't fetch her coffee. A dental office AI recommended procedures she didn't need — a reminder that upsell pressure doesn't disappear just because the salesperson is a chatbot. ChatGPT examined the contents of her refrigerator and helpfully invented ingredients that weren't there. Her AI-assisted medical consultations were, in some respects, more responsive than her human physician. She watches AI identify cancer cells a radiologist had cleared, and her account of that moment is quietly chilling.

The book is speckled with short, punchy interviews: Bill Gates, Sam Altman, Jonathan Haidt. None of them feel like filler.

One chapter on AI etiquette landed personally. I'm impulsively grateful — I catch myself thanking AI when it takes a draft and works editorial miracles I wish I'd caught myself. I know the code doesn't care. But Stern's source, Daniel Post Senning of the Emily Post Institute, offers a thought worth keeping: saying please or thank you to your AI won't improve its performance, but it may improve yours. Habits of civility, practiced anywhere, carry over.

The most delightful section involves Stern's encounter with Neo, a humanoid robot operating in a Palo Alto home. She shook its hand, accepted a bottle of water from it, watched it wipe down a counter. Then she watched it clip the leg of a chair, tip forward, and smack the floor. Her description of the aftermath — should she call 911? Perform mouth-to-charging-port resuscitation? — is genuinely funny.

She also spent time as a college student to study AI's effect on academic culture, and her conclusion is sobering: today's students may be outsourcing the very cognitive work that makes people useful in an AI-dominated world.

Stern also encountered an AI-generated novel — *Variant*, by Rice University bioengineering professor Michael King, who feeds the AI his ideas and prompts, then lets it write the book. The premise alone drew me in: an AI radiologist that kills its patients. Stern admitted she liked it, though with some chagrin. It's not an easy admission. Who wants to confess they enjoyed a book no human actually wrote? I'm more open to the idea than most. I spend a lot of time listening to audiobooks narrated by voices that were never human in any conventional sense, so an AI-authored book doesn't feel like a category violation to me. King's premise sounds fascinating, and I've been trying without success to find a copy on Bookshare.

The book closes with five rules for thriving alongside AI rather than being displaced by it:

1. I will work with the AI, not for it.
2. I will not fall in love with a bot.
3. I will think about who is watching.
4. I will raise humans, not robots.
5. I will keep building my own training data.

That fifth rule hit hardest. We document our lives less than we ever have, and the machines are building richer archives than we are. That's a quiet catastrophe in the making.

One more thing deserves mention. Stern narrates the audio edition herself, and she's excellent — poised, conversational, fully inhabited. The production team did something especially smart with the AI dialogue: rather than leaving listeners to wade through transcripts of who said what, they cast distinct voices for each AI. Stern speaks her own words; a separate voice, male or female depending on the tool, delivers the AI's responses. The exchanges feel instantaneous, almost like eavesdropping on a real conversation. If you're choosing a format, the audio edition earns its recommendation.

Perhaps the most consequential thing that happened to Stern during this year was something she didn't predict at the outset: AI became a factor in her decision to leave a long-tenured position as a tech reporter at *The Wall Street Journal* and launch her own media company. That's not a side note. It tells you something about what a year of honest, immersive engagement with this technology can do to a person's sense of what's possible.

This was a five-star book I couldn't put down. I read it days after surgery, still managing real pain, and Stern's prose was so alive, so propulsive, that for hours I forgot to hurt. I'll take her paragraphs over a fistful of Oxycodone any day.

[Yousif Al Zeera]

I found in this book a fascinating social experiment. Imagine handing over your everyday life to artificial intelligence. Decisions. Family routines. Doctors. Therapists. Self-driving cars. Folding the laundry. Even seeking a romantic partner... and yes, even intimacy.

Some experiments are astonishingly successful. Others expose just how much of the human experience still cannot be replicated. At least, not yet.

What I loved most is that the book doesn't preach. It experiments. It fails. It laughs. It questions. It reminds us that AI is neither our savior nor our replacement, it is a mirror reflecting what it means to be human.

Today, the gap between humans and machines still feels obvious. Tomorrow? I'm not so sure. If this book taught me anything, it is that the future may arrive much faster than we expect.

[Kasandra]

I was hoping this would be more thought provoking and helpful in understanding the AI landscape with actual insights. But it’s mostly wry humor, a memoir of an insecure author and moments of AI tools and how Stern used them but didn’t really provide deep context.

The parts that were the non-scientific situations with the rules of methodology are way too short and lacks a connection to the questions in the conclusions. I don’t think Stern truly explained how well or not they worked. Some parts were well done and thorough but then there’s so many random snippets of things not fleshed out. Like the part on wearable tech. There are these small blurbs about the items and a lot of reductive comedic commentary but I didn’t find the value in it. The same about the other items like the lawn mower of a robotic toy dog. There was nothing really noteworthy of her experiences.

I feel like so many of these things only barely grazed her experience. The AI boyfriend section made me think she was extremely skeptical about the experience but then ar the end she mentions an attachment I didn’t see anywhere in the chapter.

Sterns feels super neutral in tone. Maybe some of the rules of getting items to review was not to be negative or overly critical so we just get a toss way oneliner never to delve into more nuanced critiques. I’m not looking for product reviews but at the end of the day I can’t tell if the robot dog or the AI children’s books were good or bad experiences for her or her children. I can’t form any opinion from what she writes and she’s very inconsistent with her conclusions. She gives a mixed bag of the situation. And I get it will have mixed feelings but tell us how you really feel the product affects humanity.

she vaguely outlines some pros and cons but it doesn’t have the weight for readers to make an informed conclusions either.

I wanted a book to help me understand AI and the implications and the benefits and the problems. And I just didn’t feel this makes any strong case. Maybe it was the tone being too goofy or the lack of depth to any of her testing these products that I just didn’t leave feeling like it helped me understand it. Other than the cancer and dental use cases the rest I’m at a loss. I feel embarrassed I mentioned this book to a peer who also wanted a better understanding of AI for those who feel like we have to use it or we will get left behind even if we dont want to support it. This book is more for pro tech and AI people with explains of the good and bad sides but overall fairly noncommittal to deeper insights.

Would I ever want to use any of the AI Stern shares? I really don’t know. My heart says no to most of it just because it’s AI and was hoping this book would be more research explanatory and helping me reach new conclusions but I’m just as lost as before.

[Steve]

Funny and endearing. If you know very little about AI you may learn something about the general field here, there’s a tiny bit of a primer. But the real point of the book is to show what it’s like actually using AI, as it was in 2025 anyway, partly as an aid to writing a non-fiction book, but primarily in her personal life, in the home or traveling or at the doctors office, mostly with family, sometimes solo. You get to see some stuff working pretty well, some stuff failing hard, and various gradations and mixtures. And it’s funny. The book’s a tiny bit lightweight, I’m glad I got it from the library and didn’t pay $20 for it.

[Sebastian Gebski]

This book has just been published and ... it's the best moment to read it.
Why so? Because it's probably already very outdated and things won't improve in time ... (as GenAI is developing VERY quickly)

To be very frank, being a tekky and a heavy LLM user, I didn't learn much from this book. In fact, I've expected something different here - I thought J. Stern will focus on the deeper social impact of Gen AI interaction, or maybe how persistent usage of given tools have changed her habits / caused some "atrophy" - but she turned out to be much more practical: there's much more on pure utility, and whether those tools are ready for the primetime from layman's (/laywoman's) perspective.

The stories are kinda predictable, the author didn't come up with any truly novel application of Gen AI (it's not an accusation, just a statement of fact) - but maybe my perspective is a bit skewed - e.g., she has used Cursor to develop a game for her kid - is it really innovative? Well, in fact it may be very interesting for the vast majority of the society who's not that familiar with tools like Claude/ChatGPT/Gemini/Perplexity/etc.

Occasionally the book is funny as JS was really quite consequential and determined to truly used LLMs wherever she could. I wouldn't call her a tokenmaxxer ;DDD, rather a casemaxxer ;)

In the end, it's a pleasant and easy read for anyone intrigued by Gen AI/LLM who haven't used those tools extensively yet, and they'd like to learn opinion of someone who did.

[Joseph K]

This is the most impactful book on technology I’ve read since Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier, which I read in the 1990s. Joanna Stern is the original AI stuntwoman and demonstrates the good, the bad, and the ugly of this technology. The intersection of humans, AI, and robots throughout her multiple adventures over the course of one year could legitimately be a scripted TV series (or streaming series) with plenty of comedy and dramatic touchpoints, as real-world human emotions are on display.

I admire how the author opened up about many personal and private moments to explore and narrate what living with a robot and a whole boatload of AI is really like. This book is for everyone: the AI novice, the expert, and the Luddite alike. Highly recommended.

[David Steck]

I Am Not a Robot is a smart, entertaining, and surprisingly educational look at the promises and frustrations of today’s rapidly evolving technology landscape. Much like her longtime work at The Wall Street Journal, Joanna Stern brings humor, curiosity, and a deeply human touch to complex tech topics, making this an easy and engaging read even for non-technical audiences. Funny at times and thoughtful throughout, the book captures both the excitement and the absurdity of living alongside AI and modern digital tools

[Wendelle]

Written in a tongue-in-cheek, breezy, largely uncritical voice, this book is the anecdotal account of the author's attempt to learn, embrace and incorporate the full available menu of AI assistance to her daily life. This include AI in radiology, medical transcription, dentistry, transportation (robocars), music production, university education, task automation, creative writing, data centers and more. It's interesting to read about her adventures, but I was a bit discomfited by how she regularly cites, and has chummy access to, tech CEOs, without a similar platforming of tech critics. For instance, in the chapter on data centers, numbers are mentioned about the amount of water and electricity required to power them, but it also pivots quickly to citing Sam Altman's proclamation that 'with 10 GW of power, maybe data centers can cure cancer. with 10 more GW, we can tutor kids that need it. With production of all these data centers, we don't have to choose.' I find this claim incredibly facetious. First of all, the cure for cancer is a huge maybe, but the precious natural resources being diverted from communities is a cost now. Second of all, this hack of associating a controversial and turbulent technology-- such as data centers-- to a clear benefit that's universally lauded-- curing cancer-- is an old trick to do. It shields the controversial technology as no one can oppose such a laudable good, but not all-- not even the bulk-- of the technology is dedicated to curing cancer or tutoring kids. It's mostly to serve corporate or personal whims. Yet the author later on concludes the chapter by repeating this claim. So I kinda found the chirpy positivity like a gloss to a serious topic. I could be wrong though.

[Chris Boutté]

This was a really good book. A lot of AI books are one of the two extremes; they’re either insanely pro-AI or completely against it. I love books like this that try to be as objective as possible, discussing both the pros and cons of AI. This author did an excellent job of doing that.

The author used AI for as much of their life as possible for a year and documented the outcomes. This includes everything from helping her with health information, answering random questions, writing, interviewing, and a lot more. Her experience was a lot like mine, where there are definitely things AI can help with, and other times where it’s useless or just a flat-out pain in the butt to use.

She asks interesting questions about AI taking over for humans and how it would make her job (and others) far less enjoyable. I think one part of the book that stood out the most to me was her young son using AI to ask about the health of his praying mantis. The AI completely hallucinated, reassuring him that the mantis was just pregnant and the behavior was normal. The mantis dies not long after. Hopefully, that taught this young kid to be super skeptical of AI.

I put off reading this book for a long time, but once I started it, I binged it. I highly recommend everyone check this one out.

[Ammara]

4 stars

This was a really fun and easy read. I went into it wanting a better understanding of where AI actually is right now, rather than all the hype and speculation surrounding it, and I feel like I got that.

Joanna Stern explains things in a way that never feels overly technical, while also doing a good job of cutting through some of the rumors and exaggerated claims about AI. I liked that she doesn’t approach it with either blind optimism or complete doom and gloom. There’s a healthy amount of skepticism and wariness, but also some hope about what this technology could eventually become.

What stuck with me most is that the AI utopia everyone keeps talking about is nowhere close to being real—but that doesn’t mean AI isn’t already changing things. It very much is, and in ways we’re still figuring out how to deal with. By the end, I was thinking that regulation probably needs to happen sooner rather than later.

More than anything, this left me wondering how well we’re actually going to adapt to AI, and whether that adaptation will ultimately be for better or worse. I don’t have an answer to that, but I enjoyed having the book make me think about it.

[Mary Northrup]

This was so interesting, to go through the year with Stern while she and her family experienced AI (including robots) in all areas of life. As expected, this is part exciting, part scary. What makes this 5 stars is the author's humor (it's a delight to read) and her deep research. She interviewed many people for the book, including computer specialists, doctors, CEOs, a personal injury lawyer, an etiquette expert, and users of technology of all types.

[Drtaxsacto]

I could think of no other tech columnist to write a book sorting out AI than Joanna Stern. She was the long time WSJ tech columnist who combined a deep knowledge of both the substance and hype of technology. She has recently ventured from the paper to start an informative technology newsletter. (https://thenewthings.com/) which is a dirt cheap $50 per year!

If you know Joanna she is the writer who gets deeply involved in her subject - so when the Apple Vision Pro came out she did a column where she wore the device for 24 hours. So who better to sort out all the issues in AI?

What was needed was a calm (non-hyped) explanation of all the facets of AI in an organized fashion. Stern delivers a short and coherent explanation of 1) Some overlying definitions of the range of AI with 2) a year long journey where she lived everything AI. In the end she delivers some rules for keeping up as AI continues to roll on. That is all done in a short and very entertaining book.

[LB]

Was good - overview of AI, how it can be used, and how it’s evolving. Good as a primer or for those curious to expand their knowledge across AI implementation areas. Not too technical. One more intense chapter about AI sex, other than that family friendly.

[Jrene]

Educational and entertaining at the same time. I didn’t come away with any major or unexpected insights, though. What I really appreciated was the journalist’s open-minded approach. It never felt biased or one-sided.

[Craig J]

Good info on where AI is now and where it’s headed.

[Morggs]

As someone who’s staunchly against any use of AI, I think that this book opened up my eyes to a few things that it can genuinely do good for. Particularly in the healthcare industry, the use of cancer screenings and fast react knowledge to the newest research and studies can def be something that could save a lot of people. While humans are amazing, we are prone to mistakes and ignorance as well.

I still however do not think AI should be used for creatives and the arts. AI music, shows, books, pictures - etc in my opinion will always be crap. Art is meaningful because of the human experience behind it. It also 100% needs regulations , no ifs about it.

This is the future we’re headed towards, I just hope people don’t continue to get more stupid because of it. I already can barely stand societies level of intellect as we currently stand.

[Ronald J.]

Joanna Stern set herself an interesting challenge: spend a year letting AI infiltrate nearly every aspect of her life and report honestly on what happened. As a technology journalist, she certainly had the access, curiosity, and credibility to pull it off.

Unfortunately, the experiment proved more interesting than the book.

At nearly 300 pages, I Am Not a Robot feels far longer than its premise can support. Much of it reads like a personal diary punctuated by product reviews, and the narrative often becomes overly centered on Stern herself rather than the larger questions AI raises for society, business, or human flourishing. I found that increasingly distracting.

That said, the book isn't without value. Stern is a careful reporter, refreshingly skeptical of Silicon Valley hype, and she interviews a remarkable collection of researchers, entrepreneurs, and philosophers. Those conversations were easily the strongest parts of the book. I also appreciated that she repeatedly measured AI against a simple benchmark: is it actually better than the human alternative? That's exactly the right question.

Where I part company with Stern is her underlying assumption that AI should be evaluated primarily as a collection of productivity tools or life hacks. That strikes me as far too narrow. AI isn't merely another technology to save us a few minutes writing emails or planning vacations. Like electricity or the internet, it is becoming foundational infrastructure that will reshape professions, organizations, pricing models, education, and perhaps even what we mean by expertise itself. The bigger story is not whether AI can improve our daily routines, but how it changes the economic and social systems built around human intelligence.

If you're completely new to AI, this is a perfectly accessible introduction. If you've been following the field closely, however, you'll likely find little that's genuinely new beyond some enjoyable anecdotes and interviews.

One Thing
The real value of the book isn't Joanna Stern's experiment—it's the wisdom of the people she interviews. A few observations that stayed with me:
• Ethan Mollick: "Assume this is the worst AI you will ever use."
• William Gibson: "The future is already here—it's just not evenly distributed." Still one of the best descriptions of where AI stands today.
• Stern's own testing principle: "Tech is only impressive if it's better than what it's replacing." A wonderfully practical standard that cuts through much of the AI hype.
• Her second benchmark is equally valuable: "Track costs. And not just in money." Time, privacy, environmental costs, and lost human skills deserve equal attention.

I asked GPT to review the book, as did Stern at the end of the book. Here's what my GPT wrote:

I came away more positive than your two-star rating, though not by much—I would probably give it 3 stars.

Stern succeeds as a journalist far more than as an author. She asks good questions, tests products honestly, and introduces readers to first-rate thinkers. But the book never quite escapes the "I tried this app..." format. The result is a snapshot of AI in 2025 rather than a work that illuminates the enduring questions surrounding intelligence, creativity, economics, or human progress.

Ironically, Stern worries throughout the book about becoming "a robot." I finished with a different concern: too many people are treating AI as a better smartphone app when it may prove to be a new general-purpose technology on the scale of the steam engine, electricity, or the internet. That story is still being written—and it's far more interesting than this book.

[Heather]

I recommend this book; it's very informative, and written in a user-friendly style - witty and funny. Whether you love, hate, or grudgingly accept AI, this book has something for you.

[Adam]

i thought the future would be cooler.. solid read tho

[Movie Goer]

(3.5) was fun! Also cool that she was this personal in her journalism, something a chatbot could never do 😉