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Artificial Intelligence: Modern Magic or Dangerous Future?
Artificial intelligence has long been a mainstay of science fiction and increasingly it feels as if AI is entering our everyday lives, with technology like Apple’s Siri now prominent, and self-driving cars almost upon us.
But what do we actually mean when we talk about ‘AI’? Are the sentient machines of 2001 or The Matrix a real possibility or will real-world artificial intelligence look and feel very different? What has it done for us so far? And what technologies could it yield in the future?
AI expert Yorick Wilks takes a journey through the history of artificial intelligence up to the present day, examining its origins, controversies and achievements, as well as looking into just how it works. He also considers the future, assessing whether these technologies could menace our way of life, but also how we are all likely to benefit from AI applications in the years to come.
Entertaining, enlightening, and keenly argued, this is the essential one-stop guide to the AI debate.
But what do we actually mean when we talk about ‘AI’? Are the sentient machines of 2001 or The Matrix a real possibility or will real-world artificial intelligence look and feel very different? What has it done for us so far? And what technologies could it yield in the future?
AI expert Yorick Wilks takes a journey through the history of artificial intelligence up to the present day, examining its origins, controversies and achievements, as well as looking into just how it works. He also considers the future, assessing whether these technologies could menace our way of life, but also how we are all likely to benefit from AI applications in the years to come.
Entertaining, enlightening, and keenly argued, this is the essential one-stop guide to the AI debate.
176 pages, Paperback
Published June 6, 2019
23 people are currently reading
154 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
June 22, 2019
Artificial intelligence is one of those topics where it's very easy to spin off into speculation, whether it's about machine conciousness or AI taking over the world (and don't get me onto the relatively rare connection to robots - cover designer please note). All the experience of AI to date has been that it has been made feasible far slower than originally predicted, and that it faces dramatic limitations. So, for example, self-driving cars may be okay in limited circumstances, but are nowhere near ready for the commute home. Similarly, despite all the moves forward in AI technology, computers are so-so at recognising objects after learning from thousands of examples - sometimes fooled by apparently trivial surface patterning - where humans can recognise items from a handful of examples.
Even so, we can't deny that AI is having an influence on our lives and Yorick Wilks, emeritus professor of AI at the University of Sheffield, is ideally placed to give us a picture of how our current AI technology was developed, what is possible now and what may come in the future, in a compact introduction to a very important field.
Although many of the familiar basics are here, Wilks also gives us some novel considerations, whether it is the relationship of web searching to AI, what the guts of an AI program is like, or the field of AI companions for humans (no, probably not robots), which Wilks believes will be very significant in the future. He also works through the doom-mongering from some commentators, showing that while there are areas that we need to be seriously concerned about - such as the influence of algorithms we don't understand - many of the bugbears of AI are likely not to be real issues.
As Wilks points out in his summary, though AI has had some impressive successes, it is still nowhere near the goal of producing a form of general intelligence, and seems unlikely to do so - for a machine to be good at, for example, playing a game such as chess, Jeopardy or Go does not require true intelligence. But there is no doubt of the importance of AI and Wilks gives us a very distinctive and thought-provoking look at this burgeoning field.
Even so, we can't deny that AI is having an influence on our lives and Yorick Wilks, emeritus professor of AI at the University of Sheffield, is ideally placed to give us a picture of how our current AI technology was developed, what is possible now and what may come in the future, in a compact introduction to a very important field.
Although many of the familiar basics are here, Wilks also gives us some novel considerations, whether it is the relationship of web searching to AI, what the guts of an AI program is like, or the field of AI companions for humans (no, probably not robots), which Wilks believes will be very significant in the future. He also works through the doom-mongering from some commentators, showing that while there are areas that we need to be seriously concerned about - such as the influence of algorithms we don't understand - many of the bugbears of AI are likely not to be real issues.
As Wilks points out in his summary, though AI has had some impressive successes, it is still nowhere near the goal of producing a form of general intelligence, and seems unlikely to do so - for a machine to be good at, for example, playing a game such as chess, Jeopardy or Go does not require true intelligence. But there is no doubt of the importance of AI and Wilks gives us a very distinctive and thought-provoking look at this burgeoning field.
July 25, 2021
Concise, clear and relevant. Recommended.
May 12, 2023
I'm not as well versed in the AI lingo as I could be, so some of the explanations about classic AI and other things went over my head. The book doesn't really answer the question posted in the title either, or even really talk about what I think most people would think of when considering AI. It does propose some intriguing ethical dilemmas in regards to self driving cars and companion robots, and makes you re-consider what actually constitutes AI, like google search. But it seems pretty surface level and a bit circular/repetitive on these chosen topics.
February 12, 2024
Good start to the subject. Brief history of AI covered. Media and AI companies over-promising on AI capability. Deep learning is not very deep. Modern magic? No. Dangerous future? Quite possibly.
May 15, 2023
A good read - enjoyed this, found it very useful. It's very readable, makes a significant number of good points, asks questions with clarity and authority. I'm not well enough read to indicate whether or not this is the best introduction to AI around, but, given the speed of change in this field, any introduction will be a good place to start.
The speed of change, of course, is apocryphal ... things are happening fast, but maybe not as fast as many would claim. At the moment, AI is not delivering consciousness ... but ask me again tomorrow.
No, an intelligent, interesting and readable guide. Enjoyed it.
But, of course, I'm only a machine, so what would I know about humans and their choice of books?
The speed of change, of course, is apocryphal ... things are happening fast, but maybe not as fast as many would claim. At the moment, AI is not delivering consciousness ... but ask me again tomorrow.
No, an intelligent, interesting and readable guide. Enjoyed it.
But, of course, I'm only a machine, so what would I know about humans and their choice of books?
July 27, 2019
Artificial Intelligence: Modern Magic or Dangerous Future didn't live up to my expectations, especially seeing as the rest of the books in this Hot Science series are so good.
The book cover image (a cool looking humanoid robot) represents exactly what AI is not, according to this book. Instead, the term AI covers things like speech recognition, machine translation, and things like Siri, Alexa, and self driving cars.
The writing was a bit disorganised and hard to understand for someone not previously familiar with the topics. That being said, even the very limited knowledge I did have pointed out a glaring mistake:
The UK apparently still uses old fashioned post sorting machines that are incapable of reading handwritten addresses, and the author claims that this is because it is impossible for computers to read human handwriting. But I happen to know The Netherlands has been using post sorting machines that can read handwritten adresses, and even make supplements if for example someone wrote an incomplete postcode, since 2015. Not only is the author apparently uninformed about progress in his own field, but also couldn't be bothered to do a simple google search to check whether his knowledge is still up to date before printing it in a book and presenting it as fact.
Not very well written, not very well researched, and honestly not half as interesting as I thought a book on Artificial Intelligence was bound to be.
The book cover image (a cool looking humanoid robot) represents exactly what AI is not, according to this book. Instead, the term AI covers things like speech recognition, machine translation, and things like Siri, Alexa, and self driving cars.
The writing was a bit disorganised and hard to understand for someone not previously familiar with the topics. That being said, even the very limited knowledge I did have pointed out a glaring mistake:
The UK apparently still uses old fashioned post sorting machines that are incapable of reading handwritten addresses, and the author claims that this is because it is impossible for computers to read human handwriting. But I happen to know The Netherlands has been using post sorting machines that can read handwritten adresses, and even make supplements if for example someone wrote an incomplete postcode, since 2015. Not only is the author apparently uninformed about progress in his own field, but also couldn't be bothered to do a simple google search to check whether his knowledge is still up to date before printing it in a book and presenting it as fact.
Not very well written, not very well researched, and honestly not half as interesting as I thought a book on Artificial Intelligence was bound to be.
February 11, 2022
Want to know about AI? Pick something else.
It is hard to gauge who this book is aimed for. Somewhat knowledgeable people will find it boring and won't find any novelty in it, and the people unfamiliar with the topic - disjointed and misleading. The author is clearly an expert in Natural Language Processing (NLP) and mostly focuses on this subject throughout the book without much giving an insight in other topics. What is there seems too basic, without giving much information what the problems are with this tech that we already are facing. The "dangerous futures" are also mostly dreamed up futuristic scenarios with a giant gap between them and where the AI technology is currently at. Seems more of a slightly eccentric (and very experienced, mind you) NLP professor's lecture notes than a book.
If you want a good book about AI and the underlying "Magick" then pick up "How Smart Machines Think" by Sean Garrish instead.
It is hard to gauge who this book is aimed for. Somewhat knowledgeable people will find it boring and won't find any novelty in it, and the people unfamiliar with the topic - disjointed and misleading. The author is clearly an expert in Natural Language Processing (NLP) and mostly focuses on this subject throughout the book without much giving an insight in other topics. What is there seems too basic, without giving much information what the problems are with this tech that we already are facing. The "dangerous futures" are also mostly dreamed up futuristic scenarios with a giant gap between them and where the AI technology is currently at. Seems more of a slightly eccentric (and very experienced, mind you) NLP professor's lecture notes than a book.
If you want a good book about AI and the underlying "Magick" then pick up "How Smart Machines Think" by Sean Garrish instead.
October 15, 2020
Despite the sensational title, this book is more about the history of AI (going back to the 1920s), the various breakthroughs that have led to the valleys and peaks in AI excitment, the current state of AI, and a realistic look at where things may go in the future.
The media's created some unrealistic expectations in the field of AI due to their misunderstanding of the statistical nature of AI. This books provides a better picture of the current state of AI and how far it still has to go before we have anything resembling common sense, never mind consciousness!
I would recommend this book to anyone who wants a realistic picture of where AI is going to take us in our lifetime and to anyone that wants to understand the current limitations of deep learning.
The media's created some unrealistic expectations in the field of AI due to their misunderstanding of the statistical nature of AI. This books provides a better picture of the current state of AI and how far it still has to go before we have anything resembling common sense, never mind consciousness!
I would recommend this book to anyone who wants a realistic picture of where AI is going to take us in our lifetime and to anyone that wants to understand the current limitations of deep learning.
June 18, 2022
It's a poorly written book, not very well documented, with many statements without any support. Ai is not very deeply discussed. An entire chapter (8) is dedicated to an AI companion for the elderlies. First, why the elderlies? Second, who needs a companion and why? The author mention that's because they like to "chat", as it was an activity just for them, well life and social media show the opposite. Well poor argument and poorly support. The subject, AI, is very interesting and should deserve better books. So far I wasn't able to find good ones dealing with this subject.
July 16, 2022
The long history and development of Artificial Intelligence was discussed nicely. It was fascinating and I learnt some new things too. The second half of the book was more philosophical and a bit less interesting, but there were some good points to think about. It was a shorter book and some areas could've been expanded, to make it more relevant to its title.
December 8, 2019
What I found annoying about this book is that most of it was spent explaining what AI is rather them delving into the 'modern magic of dangerous future' side of it as the title implies. Some might enjoy reading the textbook what AI is, I personally didn't though
January 2, 2022
This is a really good introduction to what AI is and wraps up with some of the issues AI will have to overcome in the future. It is a couple years old at this point, and I would be interested to see a 5 or 10 year update on the current state of AI.
June 27, 2019
As a primer for what AI has evolved beyond semantics this book charts what has been the challenges, accomplishments and the unexpected obstacles.
January 3, 2020
It was a good book that explains the evolution of artificial intelligence. It was interesting to know the beginning of AI and machine learning. But it wasn't a kind of book that I expected to read.
December 25, 2020
Straight forward ⏩
November 23, 2021
A good introduction to this concept for me as I know very little about the intraticies of AI and all of the acronyms used in this book. If you are trying to stay informed and aware, I would recommend this.
May 11, 2022
Surprisingly wide and thoughtful coverage of AI for such a short book. It explains the problem of knowledge representation better than any other books I read before. Made me think and understand these things better.
June 16, 2022
Very interesting. It was exciting to review the history that got us to where we are now... From the 50's to the 70's, the major jumps in the 80s and 90s, and then how the seismic changes of the last 20 years are looked at most deeply. Some really interesting thoughts are provoked.
October 15, 2020
A very difficult book to read
October 16, 2021
Simple primer into the idea, with lots of interesting ideas to consider (many of them regarding language).
December 28, 2021
Interesting practical account on this topic
October 17, 2022
Very interesting. I like the direction this book takes. It is refreshing to see something besides a doomsday prediction.
March 17, 2023
Informative and well-balanced. The author has the patience to focus on the history and functioning of different forms of AI and makes fewer flights of fancy than many other popularizers.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews