Android Dreams: The Past, Present and Future of Artificial Intelligence

by Toby Walsh

Is the day coming when humans are redundant and robots control our destiny? Are we heading for a catastrophe of our own making?

The development of thinking machines is an adventure as bold and ambitious as any that humans have attempted. And the truth is that Artificial Intelligence is already an indispensable part of our daily lives. Without it, Google wouldn't have answers and your smartphone would just be a phone.

But how will AI change society by 2050? Will it destroy jobs? Or even pose an existential threat?

Android Dreams is a lively exploration of how AI will transform our societies, economies and selves. From robot criminals to cyber health-care, and a sky full of empty planes, Toby Walsh's predictions about AI are guaranteed to surprise you.

Genres: Nonfiction, Artificial Intelligence, Science

269 pages, Hardcover

Published September 7, 2017

About the author

Toby Walsh is one of the world’s leading researchers in Artificial Intelligence. He is a Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of New South Wales and leads a research group at Data61, Australia’s Centre of Excellence for ICT Research. He has been elected a fellow of the Association for the Advancement of AI for his contributions to AI research, and has won the prestigious Humboldt research award. He has previously held research positions in England, Scotland, France, Germany, Italy, Ireland and Sweden.

Reviews

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

a fascinating insight into a future in which we live closely with artificial intelligence. The book touches on a number of scenarios as well as the development of AI. This is a real perspective of the steps in our future.

[Melodi Özer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Android dreams is a great introduction to Artificial Intelligence. I used it as a reference and a helper for my intellectual property law paper while researching the future of AI and IP Law. It covers where Artificial Intelligence comes from, its past, the present and the what might happen in the future. It helped me clear my thoughts and gave structure to my ideas on the future of AI. I reccomend it to everyone interested. It is easy to read, it flows. Its really interesting and rather exciting to read! Thank you Toby Walsh for writing this great book. I really apprreciate it.

[Thomas Hay · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this on the recommendation of an acquaintance who is an artificial intelligence specialist. It is very readable, and does a very good job of laying out the current state of progress of artificial intelligence and its likely medium-term societal impact. There is less detailed description of the technologies involved, so I suspect this is best suited for novices like me trying to understand the nature of the huge potential impact that this sector could have.

[Akshay Singh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Insider's view on change of nature of work due to automation and AI

[Nora · Rating 4 out of 5]

An informative guide to the future of AI. The language is easy to comprehend. I would definitely recommend to people who want to have a general understanding of AI.

[Alice Gunn · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was pretty hard going - it was more like reading someone’s dissertation than anything else and was therefore quite repetitive at points. I was hoping this book would shed light on new use cases of AI that aren’t readily available but was disappointed to find the usual suspects of driverless cars and computers playing board games.