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Architects of Intelligence: The truth about AI from the people building it
Financial Times Best Books of the Year 2018
TechRepublic Top Books Every Techie Should Read
Book DescriptionHow will AI evolve and what major innovations are on the horizon? What will its impact be on the job market, economy, and society? What is the path toward human-level machine intelligence? What should we be concerned about as artificial intelligence advances?
Architects of Intelligence contains a series of in-depth, one-to-one interviews where New York Times bestselling author, Martin Ford, uncovers the truth behind these questions from some of the brightest minds in the Artificial Intelligence community.
Martin has wide-ranging conversations with twenty-three of the world's foremost researchers and entrepreneurs working in AI and Demis Hassabis (DeepMind), Ray Kurzweil (Google), Geoffrey Hinton (Univ. of Toronto and Google), Rodney Brooks (Rethink Robotics), Yann LeCun (Facebook) , Fei-Fei Li (Stanford and Google), Yoshua Bengio (Univ. of Montreal), Andrew Ng (AI Fund), Daphne Koller (Stanford), Stuart Russell (UC Berkeley), Nick Bostrom (Univ. of Oxford), Barbara Grosz (Harvard), David Ferrucci (Elemental Cognition), James Manyika (McKinsey), Judea Pearl (UCLA), Josh Tenenbaum (MIT), Rana el Kaliouby (Affectiva), Daniela Rus (MIT), Jeff Dean (Google), Cynthia Breazeal (MIT), Oren Etzioni (Allen Institute for AI), Gary Marcus (NYU), and Bryan Johnson (Kernel).
Martin Ford is a prominent futurist, and author of Financial Times Business Book of the Year, Rise of the Robots. He speaks at conferences and companies around the world on what AI and automation might mean for the future.
Meet the minds behind the AI superpowers as they discuss the science, business and ethics of modern artificial intelligence. Read James Manyika's thoughts on AI analytics, Geoffrey Hinton's breakthroughs in AI programming and development, and Rana el Kaliouby's insights into AI marketing. This AI book collects the opinions of the luminaries of the AI business, such as Stuart Russell (coauthor of the leading AI textbook), Rodney Brooks (a leader in AI robotics), Demis Hassabis (chess prodigy and mind behind AlphaGo), and Yoshua Bengio (leader in deep learning) to complete your AI education and give you an AI advantage in 2019 and the future.
TechRepublic Top Books Every Techie Should Read
Book DescriptionHow will AI evolve and what major innovations are on the horizon? What will its impact be on the job market, economy, and society? What is the path toward human-level machine intelligence? What should we be concerned about as artificial intelligence advances?
Architects of Intelligence contains a series of in-depth, one-to-one interviews where New York Times bestselling author, Martin Ford, uncovers the truth behind these questions from some of the brightest minds in the Artificial Intelligence community.
Martin has wide-ranging conversations with twenty-three of the world's foremost researchers and entrepreneurs working in AI and Demis Hassabis (DeepMind), Ray Kurzweil (Google), Geoffrey Hinton (Univ. of Toronto and Google), Rodney Brooks (Rethink Robotics), Yann LeCun (Facebook) , Fei-Fei Li (Stanford and Google), Yoshua Bengio (Univ. of Montreal), Andrew Ng (AI Fund), Daphne Koller (Stanford), Stuart Russell (UC Berkeley), Nick Bostrom (Univ. of Oxford), Barbara Grosz (Harvard), David Ferrucci (Elemental Cognition), James Manyika (McKinsey), Judea Pearl (UCLA), Josh Tenenbaum (MIT), Rana el Kaliouby (Affectiva), Daniela Rus (MIT), Jeff Dean (Google), Cynthia Breazeal (MIT), Oren Etzioni (Allen Institute for AI), Gary Marcus (NYU), and Bryan Johnson (Kernel).
Martin Ford is a prominent futurist, and author of Financial Times Business Book of the Year, Rise of the Robots. He speaks at conferences and companies around the world on what AI and automation might mean for the future.
Meet the minds behind the AI superpowers as they discuss the science, business and ethics of modern artificial intelligence. Read James Manyika's thoughts on AI analytics, Geoffrey Hinton's breakthroughs in AI programming and development, and Rana el Kaliouby's insights into AI marketing. This AI book collects the opinions of the luminaries of the AI business, such as Stuart Russell (coauthor of the leading AI textbook), Rodney Brooks (a leader in AI robotics), Demis Hassabis (chess prodigy and mind behind AlphaGo), and Yoshua Bengio (leader in deep learning) to complete your AI education and give you an AI advantage in 2019 and the future.
554 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 23, 2018
471 people are currently reading
3177 people want to read
About the author
Martin Ford
32 books251 followersMartin Ford is the author of the two books Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future (2015) and The Lights In the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future (2009) — both dealing with the effects of automation and mass-unemployment. He is the founder of a Silicon Valley-based software development firm, and obtained a computer engineering degree from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and a graduate business degree from UCLA's Anderson School of Management.
Ford was the first 21st century author[1] to publish a book (The Lights in the Tunnel in 2009) making a strong argument that advances in robotics and artificial intelligence would eventually make a large fraction of the human workforce obsolete.[2] In subsequent years, other books have made similar arguments, and Ford's thesis has been supported by a number of formal academic studies, most notably by Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne of Oxford University, who found in 2013 that the jobs held by roughly 47 percent of the U.S. workforce could be susceptible to automation within the next two decades.[3]
In his most recent book Rise of the Robots, he argues that the growth of automation now threatens many highly-educated people, like lawyers, radiologists, and software designers.[4] To deal with the rise of unemployment, he is in favor of a basic income guarantee.[5]
Both of Ford's books focus on the fact that widespread automation could potentially undermine economic growth or even lead to a deflationary spiral because jobs are the primary mechanism for distributing purchasing power to consumers.[6] He has warned that as income becomes ever more concentrated into the hands of a tiny elite, the bulk of consumers will eventually lack the income and confidence to continue supplying demand to the mass market industries that form the backbone of the modern economy.[7]
Ford strongly supports both capitalism and continued technological progress but believes it will be necessary to adapt our economic system to the new reality created by advances in artificial intelligence, and that some form of basic income guarantee is the best way to do this.[8] In Rise of the Robots he cites the Peltzman effect (or risk compensation) as evidence that the safety net created by a guaranteed income might well result in increased economic risk taking and a more dynamic and entrepreneurial economy.
Ford has also argued for incorporating explicit incentives — especially for pursuing education — into a basic income scheme, suggesting for example that those who graduate from high school (or complete an equivalency exam) ought to receive a somewhat higher guaranteed income than those who drop out. Without this, many marginal or "at risk" students would be presented with a perverse incentive to simply drop out and collect the basic income.
Ford was the first 21st century author[1] to publish a book (The Lights in the Tunnel in 2009) making a strong argument that advances in robotics and artificial intelligence would eventually make a large fraction of the human workforce obsolete.[2] In subsequent years, other books have made similar arguments, and Ford's thesis has been supported by a number of formal academic studies, most notably by Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne of Oxford University, who found in 2013 that the jobs held by roughly 47 percent of the U.S. workforce could be susceptible to automation within the next two decades.[3]
In his most recent book Rise of the Robots, he argues that the growth of automation now threatens many highly-educated people, like lawyers, radiologists, and software designers.[4] To deal with the rise of unemployment, he is in favor of a basic income guarantee.[5]
Both of Ford's books focus on the fact that widespread automation could potentially undermine economic growth or even lead to a deflationary spiral because jobs are the primary mechanism for distributing purchasing power to consumers.[6] He has warned that as income becomes ever more concentrated into the hands of a tiny elite, the bulk of consumers will eventually lack the income and confidence to continue supplying demand to the mass market industries that form the backbone of the modern economy.[7]
Ford strongly supports both capitalism and continued technological progress but believes it will be necessary to adapt our economic system to the new reality created by advances in artificial intelligence, and that some form of basic income guarantee is the best way to do this.[8] In Rise of the Robots he cites the Peltzman effect (or risk compensation) as evidence that the safety net created by a guaranteed income might well result in increased economic risk taking and a more dynamic and entrepreneurial economy.
Ford has also argued for incorporating explicit incentives — especially for pursuing education — into a basic income scheme, suggesting for example that those who graduate from high school (or complete an equivalency exam) ought to receive a somewhat higher guaranteed income than those who drop out. Without this, many marginal or "at risk" students would be presented with a perverse incentive to simply drop out and collect the basic income.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 89 reviews
November 28, 2020
Rah-rah!
We're all so heads over heels ga-ga!
Over all the intelligence,
The artificial pseudo-one,
That's not precisely intelligent,
Or even precise (often!).
But rather's pretty bonkers.
Will it wage war on us?
Or is it?
Basically a mix of interviews bordering on a mix of conjecture, hype and really vague thoughts on AI.
Not too illuminating. DNF.
We're all so heads over heels ga-ga!
Over all the intelligence,
The artificial pseudo-one,
That's not precisely intelligent,
Or even precise (often!).
But rather's pretty bonkers.
Will it wage war on us?
Or is it?
Basically a mix of interviews bordering on a mix of conjecture, hype and really vague thoughts on AI.
Not too illuminating. DNF.
July 6, 2020
Ratings are useless for this book. This book contains interviews with 24 persons who are currently working as researchers, developers, philosophers, and entrepreneurs in the field of Artificial Intelligence. This will be a great book whos are interested in this field, not only interested to contribute, but also interested to know what is happening in academia and industry. It is good to know the field and infer the future from the insights of experts rather than a public figure like Elon Musk, who is basically a businessman. Will AI one day establish a dictatorship in the world? The future is difficult to predict. Maybe there is plausibility, but it is hard to predict when and how it will happen. But one thing for sure, researchers and philosophers are very much aware of this.
"There’s also no better way to kill the field of AI than to have a major control failure, just as the nuclear industry killed itself through Chernobyl and Fukushima. AI will kill itself if we fail to address the control issue."
-- STUART J. RUSSELL
"There’s also no better way to kill the field of AI than to have a major control failure, just as the nuclear industry killed itself through Chernobyl and Fukushima. AI will kill itself if we fail to address the control issue."
-- STUART J. RUSSELL
January 12, 2019
The insight this book gives is how the views to the AI future vary widely among those 23 (or 24 if we include the author Martin Ford) top frontiers of the AI. The book also shows AI technology and implications on culture, economy, ethics, regulation are evolving.
This would be a great book for those who started learning AI/machine learning. The book would help prevent one from developing a dogmatic view of the AI. Martin Ford did a fantastic job of crowdsourcing the meta-knowledge of the AI through this interview form. This is not the book to learn a technique in depth though. I would definitely read a sequel if it were to be published in 10 years.
Now, here is a long version of the summary - as each view from those 24 people was quite valuable to me.
source of tables (https://imgur.com/gallery/hfkrzCH
https://1drv.ms/x/s!An3ahQc6Oi35gpdnz...)
Links to the tables with better resolution:
https://i.imgur.com/6g3GmyY.png
https://i.imgur.com/WhrYIRR.png
https://i.imgur.com/1BicNKi.png
https://i.imgur.com/WribtZE.png
This would be a great book for those who started learning AI/machine learning. The book would help prevent one from developing a dogmatic view of the AI. Martin Ford did a fantastic job of crowdsourcing the meta-knowledge of the AI through this interview form. This is not the book to learn a technique in depth though. I would definitely read a sequel if it were to be published in 10 years.
Now, here is a long version of the summary - as each view from those 24 people was quite valuable to me.
source of tables (https://imgur.com/gallery/hfkrzCH
https://1drv.ms/x/s!An3ahQc6Oi35gpdnz...)
Links to the tables with better resolution:
https://i.imgur.com/6g3GmyY.png
https://i.imgur.com/WhrYIRR.png
https://i.imgur.com/1BicNKi.png
https://i.imgur.com/WribtZE.png
August 28, 2020
A bit repetitive but great to see the variety of opinions from the world's leading experts. And kudos for not interviewing Elon Musk.
January 6, 2019
Artificial Intelligence is a revolutionary concept which has come to grasp the humanity and take the time ahead on wings. It is transitioning from the realm of sci-fi to the reality of our daily lives. The time is not far when every basic human action would be commanded and aided by machines. But are we really prepared for such a consequence where machines would actually slave us?
To numerous questions pertaining to our existential threats and development, Architects of Intelligence is a complete solution. It is a compilation of open-ended conversations with the minds who are behind the rapid engineering of Artificial Intelligence. The author has squeezed his one to one interviews with brilliant brains involved in AI and has come up with this book. The book offers valuable insights into the realm of Artificial Intelligence with the views of the people who are pioneers in deep learning and the critics being elucidated and put forth clearly. And therefore, the book has several potential readers - be it the ones who are involved in technology or simply the ones who wish to acquire information. Even if a few terms may resemble the typical jargon, those are explained briefly at the very outset of the book.
The concept of Artificial General Intelligence intrigued me and so has been discussed widely in the book. While some interviewees were of the opinion that AI is going to positively mold our lives, there were several others who envisage it as a potential threat for the very human existence. There are layers to the AI which uncover themselves as we read through the minds of the people. It is fascinating to know about the deep learning which is again closely related to AGI. Deep Learning is deep because they added an ability to train deeper networks; they have more layers.
It is true that Artificial Intelligence can cause harm but the truth has it that we humans created it in the first place. So, we should be the masters. There are risks associated with it, no doubt but it is our responsibility to be cautious with it. It doesn't matter which culture will reach the pinnacle of fully exploiting AI but what is important is that we need to be judicious about its usage. Our primary objective should always be to make machines for helping us and not controlling us. The analysis is definitely crucial.
The book came to me in hardcover. It was a pleasure reading across the interviews of amazing people though I am not very much into technology(facepalms). Yet, I liked how much knowledge this book gives about the wide topic of AI. It is garnering so much attention globally and this book aids in understanding its present and future potential. The language, the presentation - everything is put forth wonderfully. One would be at ease while reading it!
To numerous questions pertaining to our existential threats and development, Architects of Intelligence is a complete solution. It is a compilation of open-ended conversations with the minds who are behind the rapid engineering of Artificial Intelligence. The author has squeezed his one to one interviews with brilliant brains involved in AI and has come up with this book. The book offers valuable insights into the realm of Artificial Intelligence with the views of the people who are pioneers in deep learning and the critics being elucidated and put forth clearly. And therefore, the book has several potential readers - be it the ones who are involved in technology or simply the ones who wish to acquire information. Even if a few terms may resemble the typical jargon, those are explained briefly at the very outset of the book.
The concept of Artificial General Intelligence intrigued me and so has been discussed widely in the book. While some interviewees were of the opinion that AI is going to positively mold our lives, there were several others who envisage it as a potential threat for the very human existence. There are layers to the AI which uncover themselves as we read through the minds of the people. It is fascinating to know about the deep learning which is again closely related to AGI. Deep Learning is deep because they added an ability to train deeper networks; they have more layers.
It is true that Artificial Intelligence can cause harm but the truth has it that we humans created it in the first place. So, we should be the masters. There are risks associated with it, no doubt but it is our responsibility to be cautious with it. It doesn't matter which culture will reach the pinnacle of fully exploiting AI but what is important is that we need to be judicious about its usage. Our primary objective should always be to make machines for helping us and not controlling us. The analysis is definitely crucial.
The book came to me in hardcover. It was a pleasure reading across the interviews of amazing people though I am not very much into technology(facepalms). Yet, I liked how much knowledge this book gives about the wide topic of AI. It is garnering so much attention globally and this book aids in understanding its present and future potential. The language, the presentation - everything is put forth wonderfully. One would be at ease while reading it!
April 14, 2019
No doubt an insightful book, however the format of the book made it seem a bit repetitive by the end of it. Had it been a bit shorter or more varied in the questions the author asked interviewees, may have been more engaging through to the last chapters
January 17, 2021
I think of this book as an overview of the history and the present, a set of educated opinions that can wet your appetite to learn more about AI/HI/AGI/ML/etc.
It presents range of deeper technical and higher level policy/economy/governance considerations related to the field, with some interviews being just stellar and some.. too sci fi-ish to my liking. It also gets repetitive at times - but might be by author’s design.
The best thing about this book is you get to hear from the experts, people who spent their lives on the topic. The most surprising part - how divergent their opinions are on pretty much anything, eg how far the world is from AGI, how to get there, the risks of AI, how to address job market implications, and more. Just another proof we are really early on this journey and even the most prominent experts really don’t know much yet.
But one thing is clear - AI is a history being written as we live - and that’s fascinating in itself.
It presents range of deeper technical and higher level policy/economy/governance considerations related to the field, with some interviews being just stellar and some.. too sci fi-ish to my liking. It also gets repetitive at times - but might be by author’s design.
The best thing about this book is you get to hear from the experts, people who spent their lives on the topic. The most surprising part - how divergent their opinions are on pretty much anything, eg how far the world is from AGI, how to get there, the risks of AI, how to address job market implications, and more. Just another proof we are really early on this journey and even the most prominent experts really don’t know much yet.
But one thing is clear - AI is a history being written as we live - and that’s fascinating in itself.
January 15, 2019
Meh. A compilation of oral interviews, transcribed from audio recordings. Because very little editing was done, they are sometimes repetitive or vague or assume a level of knowledge beyond my comprehension. A fair amount of biographical information is presented, such as where so-and-so went to school, what degrees he or she earned, etc. Some AI terms are sorta, kinda explained, but a lot of terms are left undefined or underdefined, so I did a lot of searching on Google (yes, I see the irony, lol). I ran across a couple of interesting ideas I hadn't thought about, but I came away knowing very little more than I did before. I would have liked something a little more focused, rather than simply a list of who is working on speech recognition or self-driving cars or healthcare applications.
April 10, 2023
"مهندسو الذكاء" هو كتاب كتبه مارتن فورد يتضمن مقابلات مع 23 شخصية بارزة في مجال الذكاء الاصطناعي. يقدم الكتاب نظرة على خلفيات وتجارب وآراء هؤلاء الخبراء في الذكاء الاصطناعي، ويسلط الضوء على الحالة الحالية والإمكانيات المستقبلية للذكاء الاصطناعي.
يشمل الكتاب مجموعة واسعة من الموضوعات، بما في ذلك الآثار الأخلاقية والاجتماعية للذكاء الاصطناعي، وتأثير التشغيل الآلي على سوق العمل، والإمكانيات الكامنة للذكاء الاصطناعي في ثورة الرعاية الصحية والتعليم، والتحديات والفرص في تطوير تقنيات الذكاء الاصطناعي المتقدمة.
ومن بين المقابلين اللافت للنظر في الكتاب يشمل راي كورزويل، وأندرو نغ. عموماً، يقدم "مهندسو الذكاء" نظرة مقنعة وإعلامية على الأفراد الذين يشكلون مستقبل الذكاء الاصطناعي والتأثير المحتمل لهذه التقنية السريعة التطور على المجتمع.
يشمل الكتاب مجموعة واسعة من الموضوعات، بما في ذلك الآثار الأخلاقية والاجتماعية للذكاء الاصطناعي، وتأثير التشغيل الآلي على سوق العمل، والإمكانيات الكامنة للذكاء الاصطناعي في ثورة الرعاية الصحية والتعليم، والتحديات والفرص في تطوير تقنيات الذكاء الاصطناعي المتقدمة.
ومن بين المقابلين اللافت للنظر في الكتاب يشمل راي كورزويل، وأندرو نغ. عموماً، يقدم "مهندسو الذكاء" نظرة مقنعة وإعلامية على الأفراد الذين يشكلون مستقبل الذكاء الاصطناعي والتأثير المحتمل لهذه التقنية السريعة التطور على المجتمع.
July 2, 2020
This should have been a podcast, It's conversational throughout the book, and is disorienting. It is just a compilation of interviews with 20+ people without an overall theme. Feels like a subtitle out a podcast session with different episodes without continuity. Issues - lot of repetitions, doesn't carry a point, very less substance, among a few.
It tries to touch upon all topics that concern the AI community without going deep. Not a great informational book. Ex: "How long is AGI going to take?" being asked 20 times through the book and everyone has a different opinion feels like reading a Reddit thread.
Anyways, skimmed through the book. Could have skipped.
It tries to touch upon all topics that concern the AI community without going deep. Not a great informational book. Ex: "How long is AGI going to take?" being asked 20 times through the book and everyone has a different opinion feels like reading a Reddit thread.
Anyways, skimmed through the book. Could have skipped.
July 19, 2019
A series of interviews wirh people prominent in the field of AI research. What's happening in AI now, some history and where they see successful or interesting pathways in thr future. Everyone is asked about AGI (artificial general intelligence) and when they think it might happen. It's quite interesting to read about the different strategies researchers are using in AI and what the future of work for humans.
January 4, 2019
Unfortunately, I missed the insights that I expected.
In addition, the book format did not work for me: it is a verbatim collection of interviews the author held with several people active in the AI space.
In addition, the book format did not work for me: it is a verbatim collection of interviews the author held with several people active in the AI space.
February 12, 2019
This book answered a lot of my question about the development of artificial intelligence (AI). Artificial Intelligence is going disrupt the world in so many ways. It’s going to change the world as we know it, and it’s happening as I write this review.
The book talks about the risks, rewards and timelines associated with this new development. My fear is that the general public is not that literate or aware of what’s happening in our world and many will suffer, because they’re not prepared.
Some think we will lose as many as 400 million jobs globally by the year 2030 due to automation of AI and robotics. There are think tanks that are discussing solutions like universal basic income, but many economists don’t support that and others suggest that we need be a conditional basic income in which unemployed individuals can be paid to study and be retrained.
The hiring process is already changing. Now rather than give your potential employer your resume and hope for an interview, you’re asked to submit a video to a 3rd party like HireVue, which will analyze that video and look for non-verbal communication skills along with a survey they provide, and this will be the new way to get that first interview.
Now let’s consider how the military will use AI. They will be using it surgically. You don’t drop a bomb that destroys an entire building, you send in your drone that just puts the person you are interested in capturing to sleep; it could be non-lethal.
Thank goodness that a Terminator scenario is not very likely. We should not expect that somehow, we’ll come up with the secret to artificial general intelligence, and that we’ll create a human-level intelligence that will escape our control and all of a sudden, a robot will want to take over the world. The desire to take over the world is not correlated with intelligence; it’s correlated with testosterone. We have a lot of examples today in American politics, clearly illustrating that the desire for power is not correlated with intelligence. The book goes into a lot of detail of why this is the case.
A level of self-driving cars will be available within the next five years and medical imaging, which identifies diseases and cancers, is going to be radically revolutionized. Probably the most visible effects over the next few years are in medicine and health care, transportation, and information access.
Collaboration of healthcare is also going to be supported through AI. An example of this is the work being done at eye hospitals where their looking at diagnosing macular degeneration from retina scans. The publication at Nature Medicine reported that AI system can quickly interpret eye scans from routine clinical practice.
Even your vacuum cleaner and your lawn mower will be automated. Instead of going randomly around your room, your vacuum cleaner is now going to be able to see where it needs to go, and your lawnmower is going to be able to mow your lawn without running over your flowerbeds. It’s not just your car that will drive itself.
Drunk driving will also be eliminated. AI software will be able to monitor the driver for drowsiness, distraction, fatigue and even intoxication. In the case of intoxication, the driver will be alerted or even potentially have the car intervene. Intervention could be anything from changing the music to blasting a little bit of cold air, or tightening the seat belt, all the way to potentially saying, “You know what? I’m the car, and I feel I could be a safer driver than you are right now. I’m taking control over.” There’s a lot of actions the car can take once it understands the level of attention and how impaired a driver is.
One of the challenges we’re facing is our aging population. Depending on whose numbers you look at, the ratio is changing from something like nine working-age people to every one retired person (9:1) to two working-age people to every retired person (2:1).
Presently Japan is faced with an elderly population, and we are seeing some solutions being offered at robotics trade shows, where there are a lot of lab demos of robots helping the elderly to do simple tasks, such as getting into and out of bed, getting into and out of the bathroom, just simple daily things. Those things currently require one-to-one human help, but as that ratio of working-age to elderly changes, there isn’t going to be the labor force to fulfil that need. That’s going to pull robotics into helping the elderly.
I’ve just scratched the surface within this review, so I’d encourage all of us to keep up to date with this technology, it is our future.
The book talks about the risks, rewards and timelines associated with this new development. My fear is that the general public is not that literate or aware of what’s happening in our world and many will suffer, because they’re not prepared.
Some think we will lose as many as 400 million jobs globally by the year 2030 due to automation of AI and robotics. There are think tanks that are discussing solutions like universal basic income, but many economists don’t support that and others suggest that we need be a conditional basic income in which unemployed individuals can be paid to study and be retrained.
The hiring process is already changing. Now rather than give your potential employer your resume and hope for an interview, you’re asked to submit a video to a 3rd party like HireVue, which will analyze that video and look for non-verbal communication skills along with a survey they provide, and this will be the new way to get that first interview.
Now let’s consider how the military will use AI. They will be using it surgically. You don’t drop a bomb that destroys an entire building, you send in your drone that just puts the person you are interested in capturing to sleep; it could be non-lethal.
Thank goodness that a Terminator scenario is not very likely. We should not expect that somehow, we’ll come up with the secret to artificial general intelligence, and that we’ll create a human-level intelligence that will escape our control and all of a sudden, a robot will want to take over the world. The desire to take over the world is not correlated with intelligence; it’s correlated with testosterone. We have a lot of examples today in American politics, clearly illustrating that the desire for power is not correlated with intelligence. The book goes into a lot of detail of why this is the case.
A level of self-driving cars will be available within the next five years and medical imaging, which identifies diseases and cancers, is going to be radically revolutionized. Probably the most visible effects over the next few years are in medicine and health care, transportation, and information access.
Collaboration of healthcare is also going to be supported through AI. An example of this is the work being done at eye hospitals where their looking at diagnosing macular degeneration from retina scans. The publication at Nature Medicine reported that AI system can quickly interpret eye scans from routine clinical practice.
Even your vacuum cleaner and your lawn mower will be automated. Instead of going randomly around your room, your vacuum cleaner is now going to be able to see where it needs to go, and your lawnmower is going to be able to mow your lawn without running over your flowerbeds. It’s not just your car that will drive itself.
Drunk driving will also be eliminated. AI software will be able to monitor the driver for drowsiness, distraction, fatigue and even intoxication. In the case of intoxication, the driver will be alerted or even potentially have the car intervene. Intervention could be anything from changing the music to blasting a little bit of cold air, or tightening the seat belt, all the way to potentially saying, “You know what? I’m the car, and I feel I could be a safer driver than you are right now. I’m taking control over.” There’s a lot of actions the car can take once it understands the level of attention and how impaired a driver is.
One of the challenges we’re facing is our aging population. Depending on whose numbers you look at, the ratio is changing from something like nine working-age people to every one retired person (9:1) to two working-age people to every retired person (2:1).
Presently Japan is faced with an elderly population, and we are seeing some solutions being offered at robotics trade shows, where there are a lot of lab demos of robots helping the elderly to do simple tasks, such as getting into and out of bed, getting into and out of the bathroom, just simple daily things. Those things currently require one-to-one human help, but as that ratio of working-age to elderly changes, there isn’t going to be the labor force to fulfil that need. That’s going to pull robotics into helping the elderly.
I’ve just scratched the surface within this review, so I’d encourage all of us to keep up to date with this technology, it is our future.
May 16, 2024
'Architects of Intelligence' by Martin Ford is a masterful exploration of the thoughts and insights of twenty-three leading researchers and entrepreneurs shaping the future of artificial intelligence. This book offers both a deep dive and a broad survey of the AI landscape, providing invaluable perspectives on this transformative technology's trajectory. Ford's selection of interviewees and the depth of his questions result in thought-provoking and enlightening discussions.
The interviews are meticulously conducted, revealing not only the intelligence but also the philosophical inclinations of each contributor. These conversations are curated to avoid technical jargon, making the book accessible yet profoundly informative. Some of my favourite recurring themes include AI as a tool, ethical considerations of imbuing AI with a sense of self, and the potential societal transformations due to AI. Themes are handled with a reflective and engaging approach. Repetition between interviews is strategic, emphasizing critical areas and encouraging readers to deeply consider AI’s implications.
Ford’s book excels in presenting complex and often controversial topics in a manner that is comprehensible and engaging. The book doesn’t just convey information; it sparks a conversation with the reader, encouraging critical engagement with the material. It’s a remarkable resource for anyone interested in the true implications of AI, from students and scholars to tech industry professionals and policymakers.
Overall, 'Architects of Intelligence' is a crucial contribution to the ongoing conversation about the future of AI. It challenges readers to consider not just the technological advancements AI might bring, but also the broad, sometimes subtle, shifts it might cause in our social fabric. This book invites you to ponder, question, and dream about the future that AI is ushering in.
The interviews are meticulously conducted, revealing not only the intelligence but also the philosophical inclinations of each contributor. These conversations are curated to avoid technical jargon, making the book accessible yet profoundly informative. Some of my favourite recurring themes include AI as a tool, ethical considerations of imbuing AI with a sense of self, and the potential societal transformations due to AI. Themes are handled with a reflective and engaging approach. Repetition between interviews is strategic, emphasizing critical areas and encouraging readers to deeply consider AI’s implications.
Ford’s book excels in presenting complex and often controversial topics in a manner that is comprehensible and engaging. The book doesn’t just convey information; it sparks a conversation with the reader, encouraging critical engagement with the material. It’s a remarkable resource for anyone interested in the true implications of AI, from students and scholars to tech industry professionals and policymakers.
Overall, 'Architects of Intelligence' is a crucial contribution to the ongoing conversation about the future of AI. It challenges readers to consider not just the technological advancements AI might bring, but also the broad, sometimes subtle, shifts it might cause in our social fabric. This book invites you to ponder, question, and dream about the future that AI is ushering in.
July 2, 2019
After reading this book, I can say I am a little better informed on what Artificial Intelligence is all about and better placed to understand the hype surrounding the technology.
Martin Ford, the author, rightly, starts the book by defining what is AI (there are difference of opinions amongst the technologists on this) and terms like back propagation, convoluted neural network, etcetera. Moreover you get to hear (read) about AI from several horses’ mouths, pioneers and trailblazers, some of who have been working on AI since the 60s when it was just a concept and when the size of the computers were as as big as a room.
The book is actually a series of interviews with 23 scientists and inventors who are currently active in the field of AI. They give their perspective on their definition of AI, Deep Learning, evolution and timeline for development of human level intelligence (also called AGI, general artificial intelligence), self driving cars, China’s advancements in the field, use of AI in warfare, perceived economic disruption by robots and automated machines, universal basic income, etc.
One major takeaway for me from this book is that most scientists featured in the book are very bullish on the impact of the technology on humans. They contend that the disruption is inevitable, as happens with advancement in any technology, but it will also throw up unique and massive opportunities, and as a species, man will have to be adaptable to the changing scenarios. No one actually has an apocalyptic view of machines overtaking humans in intelligence which the likes of Elon Musk have predicted.
The book is overall an amazing read both for AI aficionados and people who are inquisitive about what AI is all about. Highly recommended!
Martin Ford, the author, rightly, starts the book by defining what is AI (there are difference of opinions amongst the technologists on this) and terms like back propagation, convoluted neural network, etcetera. Moreover you get to hear (read) about AI from several horses’ mouths, pioneers and trailblazers, some of who have been working on AI since the 60s when it was just a concept and when the size of the computers were as as big as a room.
The book is actually a series of interviews with 23 scientists and inventors who are currently active in the field of AI. They give their perspective on their definition of AI, Deep Learning, evolution and timeline for development of human level intelligence (also called AGI, general artificial intelligence), self driving cars, China’s advancements in the field, use of AI in warfare, perceived economic disruption by robots and automated machines, universal basic income, etc.
One major takeaway for me from this book is that most scientists featured in the book are very bullish on the impact of the technology on humans. They contend that the disruption is inevitable, as happens with advancement in any technology, but it will also throw up unique and massive opportunities, and as a species, man will have to be adaptable to the changing scenarios. No one actually has an apocalyptic view of machines overtaking humans in intelligence which the likes of Elon Musk have predicted.
The book is overall an amazing read both for AI aficionados and people who are inquisitive about what AI is all about. Highly recommended!
August 29, 2020
Что-то между 3* и 4*. Книгой это даже сложно назвать. Скорее толстый выпуск журнала "вестник искусственного интеллекта", сразу устаревший после публикации.
23 Коротких интервью, в которых вы не найдете ничего нового, если ранее уже читали какую-то литературу по AI и проблемам, которые его окружают.
23 Коротких интервью, в которых вы не найдете ничего нового, если ранее уже читали какую-то литературу по AI и проблемам, которые его окружают.
November 12, 2019
The bible on AI. Not the lightest of reads, but highly recommended.
September 24, 2020
Good book overall,
The font in the printed version is too small, don't get it if you care for your eyes!
The font in the printed version is too small, don't get it if you care for your eyes!
October 14, 2019
great collection of interviews with act and thought leaders in the field of AI
Read
January 14, 2024We’re doubling every year. 1% is only 7 doublings from 100%.
April 13, 2019
It's hard to read this book for every single scientist. I think you just choose some of them read and done.
January 30, 2021
I wanted to share my experience and lessons learned from a book that completely hooked and pulled me into the subject matter. I am trying something new with this book review on GoodReads, so please be kind but do let me know if you enjoyed this, if you did not and if there are tips to help me improve for next time, all inputs are welcome.
Architects of AI does what the podcasts, explainer videos, fanatics and passionate technologists fail to do repeatedly. Deliver the realities, limitations, concerns and pragmatic hopes for the future of humanity with AI. And, if you doubt it, like I did initially, please read on as AI will be integrated and woven more intricately than we anticipate and faster than we can possibly unweave. But fear not, Skynet is not falling or calling, and robots aren't yet taking all of our jobs. The book claims to contain "The Truth about AI from the people building it" and from my limited exposure to the depths of this subject prior to reading, it delivers in full effect.
This guide to AI is from author Martin Ford, who is already a NYT best-selling author (Rise of the Robots, Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future) and recipient of Business Book of the year in 2015 by FT and McKinsey & company. Now, before I get into my rave review of the book I do want to disclaim the book format is unique and lends itself to learning through the distinctive and sometimes repetitive interview-style format. However, Mr. Ford and the interviewees / contributors always manage to keep it light and centric to how this may impact our average daily lives. And speaking of contributors, the list on the sleeve reads like a who's who in AI domain expertise. AI celebrities like Bengio, Bostrom, Fei Fei Li and even other futurists like Ray Kurzweil weigh-in giving this context some real weight and clout. Most of the names were new to me as well but what isn't is the organizations these leaders in AI represent. Google, Deep Mind, Amazon, Alibaba, Stanford, MIT. However, one of my personal favorites must be Andrew Ng. What he has already accomplished in the field, in conjunction with his efforts to ensure AI is accessible by all inspires me to see all the benefits along with the careful caveats associated to AI/ML adoption. He is also the co-founder of Coursera and Deeplearning.ai and of late, he is also my virtual instructor in his 12week Stanford Machine Learning course on Coursera. One of the fundamental concepts that I took away regularly with this book is how prevalent and interlaced AI already is in our day-to-day lives. Also, that the real threat comes from within - if we/they do not democratized AI correctly it will only contribute to many societal issues we are facing today eg. ever widening chasm that is our wealth gap. For those of us here (goodreads) that sell and profit in products with AI, I ask you to reverse that same sales pitch we all know. "If you are not using AI in your business, and your competition is, you are being left behind in the market. Competitor costs will go down, workforce innovation backfills and compliments the automation all while your company stagnates. What if we, as low-level stewards of tech and influencers (even in our respective familiar circles) try and extrapolate what that comment might mean when turned around and aimed at the general public. If the slogan goes "if you're not leveraging AI or ML, your already dead and just don’t know it" then what the does that mean for my sons, nephews and nieces now or future grandchildren tomorrow? And in that sense, without dogma, what the hell does left-behind mean for them.
To me, that systemic question presents itself in many ways throughout the book but some of the best examples I can glean are -
Universal Basic Income: sci-fi fans out there will recognize this theme and it's prevalence across almost all contributors
AI as a Service: Be it personal, professional or simply a matter of making it affordable and accessible to small business. Andrew Ng’s Landing AI is an example of this business model.
Artificial General AI |AGI | Strong AI: This is the kind of AI usually represented by Terminators, Apocalypses and cause to all fictional dystopias does not exist and is no where close to causing threat.
AI Winter: Term has been popularized across industries but for AI, winters have come and gone, but AI is here to stay now. Lack of a better description, that genie is not going back in that bottle.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and all the burgeoning subjects that have percolated from it. I heartily recommend this book for those that have interest, fear or just a healthy engineering dose of skepticism in AI. It can be digested in chapters/interviews very easily and now remains a reference book for me. I look forward to his next publication.
Architects of AI does what the podcasts, explainer videos, fanatics and passionate technologists fail to do repeatedly. Deliver the realities, limitations, concerns and pragmatic hopes for the future of humanity with AI. And, if you doubt it, like I did initially, please read on as AI will be integrated and woven more intricately than we anticipate and faster than we can possibly unweave. But fear not, Skynet is not falling or calling, and robots aren't yet taking all of our jobs. The book claims to contain "The Truth about AI from the people building it" and from my limited exposure to the depths of this subject prior to reading, it delivers in full effect.
This guide to AI is from author Martin Ford, who is already a NYT best-selling author (Rise of the Robots, Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future) and recipient of Business Book of the year in 2015 by FT and McKinsey & company. Now, before I get into my rave review of the book I do want to disclaim the book format is unique and lends itself to learning through the distinctive and sometimes repetitive interview-style format. However, Mr. Ford and the interviewees / contributors always manage to keep it light and centric to how this may impact our average daily lives. And speaking of contributors, the list on the sleeve reads like a who's who in AI domain expertise. AI celebrities like Bengio, Bostrom, Fei Fei Li and even other futurists like Ray Kurzweil weigh-in giving this context some real weight and clout. Most of the names were new to me as well but what isn't is the organizations these leaders in AI represent. Google, Deep Mind, Amazon, Alibaba, Stanford, MIT. However, one of my personal favorites must be Andrew Ng. What he has already accomplished in the field, in conjunction with his efforts to ensure AI is accessible by all inspires me to see all the benefits along with the careful caveats associated to AI/ML adoption. He is also the co-founder of Coursera and Deeplearning.ai and of late, he is also my virtual instructor in his 12week Stanford Machine Learning course on Coursera. One of the fundamental concepts that I took away regularly with this book is how prevalent and interlaced AI already is in our day-to-day lives. Also, that the real threat comes from within - if we/they do not democratized AI correctly it will only contribute to many societal issues we are facing today eg. ever widening chasm that is our wealth gap. For those of us here (goodreads) that sell and profit in products with AI, I ask you to reverse that same sales pitch we all know. "If you are not using AI in your business, and your competition is, you are being left behind in the market. Competitor costs will go down, workforce innovation backfills and compliments the automation all while your company stagnates. What if we, as low-level stewards of tech and influencers (even in our respective familiar circles) try and extrapolate what that comment might mean when turned around and aimed at the general public. If the slogan goes "if you're not leveraging AI or ML, your already dead and just don’t know it" then what the does that mean for my sons, nephews and nieces now or future grandchildren tomorrow? And in that sense, without dogma, what the hell does left-behind mean for them.
To me, that systemic question presents itself in many ways throughout the book but some of the best examples I can glean are -
Universal Basic Income: sci-fi fans out there will recognize this theme and it's prevalence across almost all contributors
AI as a Service: Be it personal, professional or simply a matter of making it affordable and accessible to small business. Andrew Ng’s Landing AI is an example of this business model.
Artificial General AI |AGI | Strong AI: This is the kind of AI usually represented by Terminators, Apocalypses and cause to all fictional dystopias does not exist and is no where close to causing threat.
AI Winter: Term has been popularized across industries but for AI, winters have come and gone, but AI is here to stay now. Lack of a better description, that genie is not going back in that bottle.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and all the burgeoning subjects that have percolated from it. I heartily recommend this book for those that have interest, fear or just a healthy engineering dose of skepticism in AI. It can be digested in chapters/interviews very easily and now remains a reference book for me. I look forward to his next publication.
February 2, 2021
It's good, presenting compelling points and forcing you to consider the advance of technology from a number of different viewpoints. The interviews start to feel repetitive after awhile, as one reads the same questions over and over again. It's hard argue against being thorough, though, and the book would have suffered for being more selective.
There were a number of repeated themes throughout the interviews. One was debate about whether deep learning, a hybrid between deep learning and a symbolic approach, or something completely new is necessary to achieve artificial general intelligence. Another was concern for the impact on the job market. The most striking thing, though, was how much disagreement there was between the interviewers (humorously, contentious views were often declared to be self-evident) . All of the interviews were conducted individually, but many of the interviewees were clearly on a first name basis with each other, and it often felt like they were rebutting someone sitting beside them.
Isolated observations follow.
With a name like Slaughterbots, you basically have to track and watch down Stuart Russell's short film. Which is probably the point.
Geoffrey Hinton (as an aside, he was a heavy popularizer of Boltzmann machines, something I know nothing about but have been twice been encouraged to look into) describes old-school logic-based AI researchers as being interested in symbolic reasoning and old-school neural-net-based AI researchers as being interested in learning and perception. Later, he digs at the former by saying that just because intelligence uses symbols going in and symbols going out, it doesn't mean it's symbols in between. Hinton also has a fascinating story about how he left the field of psychology: he was testing the hypothesis that kids transition from focusing more on color to more on shape as they develop, and he did so by first training kids to point out the item in a set that did not belong and then confronting them with a situation where either color or shape were valid responses. One of this subjects instead responded that one of the shapes had been painted the wrong color, demonstrating awareness of both answers and further going to the trouble to model why that might have occurred. Hinton decided the tools of psychology to understand intelligence were just too blunt to give new insight, and he moved on to briefly becoming a carpenter.
The Fei-Fei Li interview was a little frustrating, putting a positive spin on every research avenue and every professional relationship and dodging any meaningful questions.
I liked James Manyika describing the way his father "filled my head" with a passion for science and tech. That interview was refreshing for being such a careful, data-driven description of how tech disrupts jobs.
Judea Pearl has a nice analogy for why understanding matters: if you subscribe to the old view that a miasma causes malaria, then you bring a gas mask, and if you subscribe to the new view that it's mosquitos, you'll bring a face net. This was exactly the analogy I have previously failed to find during discussions with loved ones who are of a more conspiracy-minded bent.
David Ferrucci describes his daughter taking a test where she knows the answer because she can match words, but she complained to him that she didn't really understand what was going on. His point was that it's relatively easy to teach computers to do text matching, but significantly harder to give it a meaningful model of what it's learned. (This raises certain uncomfortable truths about some job training I've had to endure.) Later, he returns to a related question by asking if we should be comfortable abrogating responsibility to a machine that cannot explain it's choices. Do we currently feel comfortable giving up agency to a human who cannot explain its reasoning? (Maybe don't answer that literally.)
my favorite quote: "Neural networks are able to capture a lot of the garden-variety cases, but if you think about a long-tail distribution, they're very weak at the tail."
There were a number of repeated themes throughout the interviews. One was debate about whether deep learning, a hybrid between deep learning and a symbolic approach, or something completely new is necessary to achieve artificial general intelligence. Another was concern for the impact on the job market. The most striking thing, though, was how much disagreement there was between the interviewers (humorously, contentious views were often declared to be self-evident) . All of the interviews were conducted individually, but many of the interviewees were clearly on a first name basis with each other, and it often felt like they were rebutting someone sitting beside them.
Isolated observations follow.
With a name like Slaughterbots, you basically have to track and watch down Stuart Russell's short film. Which is probably the point.
Geoffrey Hinton (as an aside, he was a heavy popularizer of Boltzmann machines, something I know nothing about but have been twice been encouraged to look into) describes old-school logic-based AI researchers as being interested in symbolic reasoning and old-school neural-net-based AI researchers as being interested in learning and perception. Later, he digs at the former by saying that just because intelligence uses symbols going in and symbols going out, it doesn't mean it's symbols in between. Hinton also has a fascinating story about how he left the field of psychology: he was testing the hypothesis that kids transition from focusing more on color to more on shape as they develop, and he did so by first training kids to point out the item in a set that did not belong and then confronting them with a situation where either color or shape were valid responses. One of this subjects instead responded that one of the shapes had been painted the wrong color, demonstrating awareness of both answers and further going to the trouble to model why that might have occurred. Hinton decided the tools of psychology to understand intelligence were just too blunt to give new insight, and he moved on to briefly becoming a carpenter.
The Fei-Fei Li interview was a little frustrating, putting a positive spin on every research avenue and every professional relationship and dodging any meaningful questions.
I liked James Manyika describing the way his father "filled my head" with a passion for science and tech. That interview was refreshing for being such a careful, data-driven description of how tech disrupts jobs.
Judea Pearl has a nice analogy for why understanding matters: if you subscribe to the old view that a miasma causes malaria, then you bring a gas mask, and if you subscribe to the new view that it's mosquitos, you'll bring a face net. This was exactly the analogy I have previously failed to find during discussions with loved ones who are of a more conspiracy-minded bent.
David Ferrucci describes his daughter taking a test where she knows the answer because she can match words, but she complained to him that she didn't really understand what was going on. His point was that it's relatively easy to teach computers to do text matching, but significantly harder to give it a meaningful model of what it's learned. (This raises certain uncomfortable truths about some job training I've had to endure.) Later, he returns to a related question by asking if we should be comfortable abrogating responsibility to a machine that cannot explain it's choices. Do we currently feel comfortable giving up agency to a human who cannot explain its reasoning? (Maybe don't answer that literally.)
my favorite quote: "Neural networks are able to capture a lot of the garden-variety cases, but if you think about a long-tail distribution, they're very weak at the tail."
February 17, 2024
The book "Architects of Intelligence: The truth about AI from the people building it" by Martin Ford offers a comprehensive overview of artificial intelligence (AI), focusing on its inner workings, implications, and potential future developments. It delves into various aspects of AI, from its current capabilities to its potential risks and ethical considerations. Ford draws on insights from 23 AI experts he interviewed for the book, providing readers with a well-rounded understanding of the field.
The book begins by addressing the widespread interest and debate surrounding AI, acknowledging that opinions on its impact vary widely. Ford highlights that while AI has the potential to transform industries and improve various aspects of human life, it also raises concerns about job displacement, bias, and the potential misuse of autonomous weapons. The book offers a balanced perspective on these issues, exploring both the benefits and challenges associated with AI.
One of the key themes in the book is the role of deep learning in AI development. Ford explains that deep learning, a form of machine learning that involves neural networks, has driven many recent advances in AI. However, he also points out that deep learning has limitations and is currently only capable of completing specific, narrow tasks. Achieving Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), which would require AI to have human-like cognitive abilities, remains a distant goal.
The book also discusses the potential applications of AI in various fields, including healthcare, scientific research, and the military. Ford highlights the benefits of AI in these areas, such as improving diagnosis and treatment in healthcare and enhancing scientific discovery. However, he also acknowledges the ethical and societal implications of AI, such as the potential for job displacement and the risk of bias in AI algorithms.
Overall, "Architects of Intelligence" provides a comprehensive overview of AI, covering its capabilities, limitations, and ethical considerations. The book offers valuable insights from leading experts in the field and presents a balanced perspective on the potential benefits and challenges of AI. It is a valuable resource for anyone interested in understanding the current state of AI and its implications for society.
The book begins by addressing the widespread interest and debate surrounding AI, acknowledging that opinions on its impact vary widely. Ford highlights that while AI has the potential to transform industries and improve various aspects of human life, it also raises concerns about job displacement, bias, and the potential misuse of autonomous weapons. The book offers a balanced perspective on these issues, exploring both the benefits and challenges associated with AI.
One of the key themes in the book is the role of deep learning in AI development. Ford explains that deep learning, a form of machine learning that involves neural networks, has driven many recent advances in AI. However, he also points out that deep learning has limitations and is currently only capable of completing specific, narrow tasks. Achieving Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), which would require AI to have human-like cognitive abilities, remains a distant goal.
The book also discusses the potential applications of AI in various fields, including healthcare, scientific research, and the military. Ford highlights the benefits of AI in these areas, such as improving diagnosis and treatment in healthcare and enhancing scientific discovery. However, he also acknowledges the ethical and societal implications of AI, such as the potential for job displacement and the risk of bias in AI algorithms.
Overall, "Architects of Intelligence" provides a comprehensive overview of AI, covering its capabilities, limitations, and ethical considerations. The book offers valuable insights from leading experts in the field and presents a balanced perspective on the potential benefits and challenges of AI. It is a valuable resource for anyone interested in understanding the current state of AI and its implications for society.
July 22, 2021
A great set of insightful interviews from serious thinkers in the field of artificial intelligence and machine learning. Almost all of these interviews were insightful and include researchers who have made substantial contributions to the field in the past 10 years. These include Demis Hassabis who worked on constructing AlphaGo and is working on other reinforcement learning projects in games of strategy, the original ‘trinity’ of deep learning, Geoffrey Hinton, Youshua Bengio, and Yann LeCun (each with individual interviews!), as well as theoreticians in other non- mainline machine learning fields like Judea Pearl, who’s primary works include building machinery for causal networks, and the study of causality in general, as well as inventors in the field of robotics, including Cynthia Breazeal who is most recently well known for Jibo, and even includes older members of the field, like Rodney Brooks, who built the iRobot company and David Ferrucci, who architected IBM Watson.
There is a general template to the interviews, Martin Ford, the interviewer, will ask them to introduce themselves, then go deep in their field, but he always ends with some combination of questions of “Do you think we are close to AGI”, “Are you worried about China pioneering AI technologies?”, or “Are you worried about jobs being displaced by automation” and the related “Should the US implement a UBI?” This book was published in 2018, about a year and half before the 2020 elections, so these questions were highly relevant (and still are) for that period, although the UBI question is less so now since Andrew Yang is no longer in politics. These questions are also influenced by Martin Ford himself, who previously wrote a book on the effects of robotics and automation on the US economy in 2014/15.
Though this is by far a textbook, it was extremely helpful to hear the “life stories” of the various researchers, it helps put someone who is making their way up in the field’s own struggles/paths in context, and one can extract some interesting life lessons from hearing them recounted by people who’ve already ‘made it’. In this way this book is similar to Jack Scwhweiger’s books on trading where he interviews trading professionals. The only thing I’d like from Ford in the future is to dig deeper, find more obscure researchers/academics/investors/practitioners and maybe like Schweiger release sequel books specialized in a certain subfield of the discipline (IoT, Ecommerce, Robotics/Personal Assistants etc.). Otherwise, literally nothing to complain about. A book worth the price of admission and more importantly, the time to listen. Highly recommended for anyone in the AI/Data Science/Machine Learning fields.
There is a general template to the interviews, Martin Ford, the interviewer, will ask them to introduce themselves, then go deep in their field, but he always ends with some combination of questions of “Do you think we are close to AGI”, “Are you worried about China pioneering AI technologies?”, or “Are you worried about jobs being displaced by automation” and the related “Should the US implement a UBI?” This book was published in 2018, about a year and half before the 2020 elections, so these questions were highly relevant (and still are) for that period, although the UBI question is less so now since Andrew Yang is no longer in politics. These questions are also influenced by Martin Ford himself, who previously wrote a book on the effects of robotics and automation on the US economy in 2014/15.
Though this is by far a textbook, it was extremely helpful to hear the “life stories” of the various researchers, it helps put someone who is making their way up in the field’s own struggles/paths in context, and one can extract some interesting life lessons from hearing them recounted by people who’ve already ‘made it’. In this way this book is similar to Jack Scwhweiger’s books on trading where he interviews trading professionals. The only thing I’d like from Ford in the future is to dig deeper, find more obscure researchers/academics/investors/practitioners and maybe like Schweiger release sequel books specialized in a certain subfield of the discipline (IoT, Ecommerce, Robotics/Personal Assistants etc.). Otherwise, literally nothing to complain about. A book worth the price of admission and more importantly, the time to listen. Highly recommended for anyone in the AI/Data Science/Machine Learning fields.
February 14, 2022
The book is a collection of semi-structured interviews with world-leading influencers in AI. It's less "written" by Ford and more "designed and guided" by him. The interviews attempt to cover every major aspect of AI from a futurist or social-impact perspective, although doesn't attempt to teach you much about AI from a practitioner or computer science perspective.
To be honest, I didn't get a lot from this book and it began to get quite laborious toward the end. Yes, these are the world leaders in AI research and industry and that should be very interesting, but Ford's insistence on asking every person about the alignment problem, job losses, whether "deep learning" is all AI is, government regulation of AI, whether we're in a race with China, self-driving cars, and when AGI will emerge was tedious and nullified the value of the interviews. These are AI researchers, not economists. They can't tell you the impacts on job losses any more than a nuclear physicist can inform on how mining towns will be affected by nuclear power, beyond "it will probably have an effect." Nor are they political scientists. They can't comment on the value of government regulation any more than "I would/wouldn't like that." If the researchers don't specialise in AGI, then why ask them about AGI? Their answers are just going to be "that seems a long way off." If they haven't actively participated in discussions on the alignment problem, then they're not going to understand it, and that was clear with more than a few of the interviewees: they simply had no idea what Bostrom's underlying thesis was and their answers were either complete misunderstandings or proverbial shrugs. Finally, nobody can give you accurate predictions of future technologies, and the insistence of discussing timelines for self-driving cars and AGI is as ignorant as it is pointless.
Then there's the "what's in it for me" test. It introduces you, very briefly, to the areas that the researchers are interested in, but then Ford steers them away almost immediately toward AGI, job losses...etc... and you don't learn that much about what they're actually doing. They may introduce how they formed the ideas of deep learning, ReLU, backpropagation...etc... but not enough to either teach you what these concepts actually are nor give you more insight if you already know what they are. It tries to "dumb it down" and fails poorly at doing so. So who is this written for? What are we expected to learn from the interviews?
I normally write a summary of what I've learned from the book I've read, but I struggled to see clearly what I've learned in this one. It was like walking in on one massive "interesting conversation" that got very repetitive after the first 12 hours, and one where you realise there isn't much to summarise at the end of it.
To be honest, I didn't get a lot from this book and it began to get quite laborious toward the end. Yes, these are the world leaders in AI research and industry and that should be very interesting, but Ford's insistence on asking every person about the alignment problem, job losses, whether "deep learning" is all AI is, government regulation of AI, whether we're in a race with China, self-driving cars, and when AGI will emerge was tedious and nullified the value of the interviews. These are AI researchers, not economists. They can't tell you the impacts on job losses any more than a nuclear physicist can inform on how mining towns will be affected by nuclear power, beyond "it will probably have an effect." Nor are they political scientists. They can't comment on the value of government regulation any more than "I would/wouldn't like that." If the researchers don't specialise in AGI, then why ask them about AGI? Their answers are just going to be "that seems a long way off." If they haven't actively participated in discussions on the alignment problem, then they're not going to understand it, and that was clear with more than a few of the interviewees: they simply had no idea what Bostrom's underlying thesis was and their answers were either complete misunderstandings or proverbial shrugs. Finally, nobody can give you accurate predictions of future technologies, and the insistence of discussing timelines for self-driving cars and AGI is as ignorant as it is pointless.
Then there's the "what's in it for me" test. It introduces you, very briefly, to the areas that the researchers are interested in, but then Ford steers them away almost immediately toward AGI, job losses...etc... and you don't learn that much about what they're actually doing. They may introduce how they formed the ideas of deep learning, ReLU, backpropagation...etc... but not enough to either teach you what these concepts actually are nor give you more insight if you already know what they are. It tries to "dumb it down" and fails poorly at doing so. So who is this written for? What are we expected to learn from the interviews?
I normally write a summary of what I've learned from the book I've read, but I struggled to see clearly what I've learned in this one. It was like walking in on one massive "interesting conversation" that got very repetitive after the first 12 hours, and one where you realise there isn't much to summarise at the end of it.
July 29, 2023
Technology is neutral. What matters is how we decide to use it...
AI Paradox - What is easy for one, is hard for the other and vice versa.
Topics discussed in this Book:
- What specific AI approaches and technologies are most promising?
- What kind of breakthroughs might we seen in the coming years?
- What risks and threats associated with artificial intelligence should we be concerned about?
- Will AI unleash massive economic and job market distribution or are these concerns overhyped?
- How we design the systems with knowing that people are going to abuse it?
- Why we need to prioritize our own improvement as human species above everything else?
- When will Human Level AI be achieved? (AGI)
Note: Every Artificial Intelligence system today is Idiot. It can have an excellent ability to do well specific task, but it's still missing the common sense understanding, the perception and knowing the context.
This Book is written as a dialogue / interview with the most advanced minds in the field of machine learning - Architects of Intelligence.
Reading this book will provide you deeper understanding of the concept of AI and how complex it really is. As humanity we will always face the challenges - how we survive as the species?
Burying our head in the sand will not solve the problems. We need to reconsider how we approach these problems and solve it together, and AI will be our best ally for sure.
Daphne Koller - "Stopping progress by stopping technology is the wrong approach. If you don't make progress technologically, someone else will and their intent might be considerably less beneficial than yours."
AI Paradox - What is easy for one, is hard for the other and vice versa.
Topics discussed in this Book:
- What specific AI approaches and technologies are most promising?
- What kind of breakthroughs might we seen in the coming years?
- What risks and threats associated with artificial intelligence should we be concerned about?
- Will AI unleash massive economic and job market distribution or are these concerns overhyped?
- How we design the systems with knowing that people are going to abuse it?
- Why we need to prioritize our own improvement as human species above everything else?
- When will Human Level AI be achieved? (AGI)
Note: Every Artificial Intelligence system today is Idiot. It can have an excellent ability to do well specific task, but it's still missing the common sense understanding, the perception and knowing the context.
This Book is written as a dialogue / interview with the most advanced minds in the field of machine learning - Architects of Intelligence.
Reading this book will provide you deeper understanding of the concept of AI and how complex it really is. As humanity we will always face the challenges - how we survive as the species?
Burying our head in the sand will not solve the problems. We need to reconsider how we approach these problems and solve it together, and AI will be our best ally for sure.
Daphne Koller - "Stopping progress by stopping technology is the wrong approach. If you don't make progress technologically, someone else will and their intent might be considerably less beneficial than yours."
February 12, 2020
A collection of interviews to 24, including the author Martin Ford, active and accomplished people in AI field. It is a great read to learn some general knowledge about AI, and take on different points of view on AI's impact on our society.
"Current AI - and the AI that we can foresee in the reasonable future - does not, and will not, have a moral sense or moral understanding of what is right and what is wrong." Yoshua Bengio.
"Once an AGI gets past kindergarten reading level, it will shoot beyond anything that any human being has ever done, and it will have a much bigger knowledge base than any human ever has." Stuart J. Russell.
"A human can learn to drive a car in 15 hours of training without crashing into anything. If you want to use the current reinforcement learning methods to train a car to drive itself, the machine will have to drive off cliffs 10,000 times before it figures out how not to do that." Yann Lecun
"If you look at a question like, "Would an elephant fit through a doorway?", while most people can answer that question almost instantaneously, machines will struggle. What's easy for one is hard for the other, and vice versa. That is what I call the AI Paradox. " Oren Etzioni
"The current machine learning concentration on deep learning and its non-transparent structures is a hang-up. They need to liberate themselves from this data-centric philosophy." Judea Pearl
"Current AI - and the AI that we can foresee in the reasonable future - does not, and will not, have a moral sense or moral understanding of what is right and what is wrong." Yoshua Bengio.
"Once an AGI gets past kindergarten reading level, it will shoot beyond anything that any human being has ever done, and it will have a much bigger knowledge base than any human ever has." Stuart J. Russell.
"A human can learn to drive a car in 15 hours of training without crashing into anything. If you want to use the current reinforcement learning methods to train a car to drive itself, the machine will have to drive off cliffs 10,000 times before it figures out how not to do that." Yann Lecun
"If you look at a question like, "Would an elephant fit through a doorway?", while most people can answer that question almost instantaneously, machines will struggle. What's easy for one is hard for the other, and vice versa. That is what I call the AI Paradox. " Oren Etzioni
"The current machine learning concentration on deep learning and its non-transparent structures is a hang-up. They need to liberate themselves from this data-centric philosophy." Judea Pearl
December 28, 2019
I absolutely appreciated the perspectives of the relative AI reserachers that this book offered.
To a certain degree this book was a little repetitive because similiar questions were asked to the 23 (there wouldnt have been a better structure possible to show each person's opinions I guess) experts but nonetheless, there were also mostly new informations in each interview.
I also hoped to learn more about AI techniques which I definitely did, but the book stayed more general, which is completely okay. But I think this is just something you should consider before reading: You get to listen to AI experts you would probably not have the chance to meet in person otherwise and they tell you for example how and why they got started in and with AI and how their careers developed which can be very interesting. And you will definitely be able to form a more grounded position/opinion towards AI and its relative challenges people talk about.
You will not know after reading how AI technologies work. But I mean this was also not a promise the book stated before.
So overall, thanks to Martin Ford and the 23 interviewed experts in this book for sharing their views and offering a deeper insight into their thinking and career paths!
To a certain degree this book was a little repetitive because similiar questions were asked to the 23 (there wouldnt have been a better structure possible to show each person's opinions I guess) experts but nonetheless, there were also mostly new informations in each interview.
I also hoped to learn more about AI techniques which I definitely did, but the book stayed more general, which is completely okay. But I think this is just something you should consider before reading: You get to listen to AI experts you would probably not have the chance to meet in person otherwise and they tell you for example how and why they got started in and with AI and how their careers developed which can be very interesting. And you will definitely be able to form a more grounded position/opinion towards AI and its relative challenges people talk about.
You will not know after reading how AI technologies work. But I mean this was also not a promise the book stated before.
So overall, thanks to Martin Ford and the 23 interviewed experts in this book for sharing their views and offering a deeper insight into their thinking and career paths!
November 23, 2020
The book contains interviews with 23 most prominent research scientists and enterpreneurs in AI and Machine Learning (including ‘Fathers of Deep Learning’: Geoffrey Hinton, Yoshua Bengio and Yann LeCun), who made significant contributions to those fields through different dimensions.
Though interviews are fairly open ended, author tries to focus discussion around getting to know opinions of these 23 individuals on questions such as
-What are some of the most promising AI approaches and technologies and what breakthroughs in the field we might see in the near future
-Path to Artificial General Intelligence
-Impact of AI on economy and employment
-The issue of bias in data and possibility of regulations in AI research
-Development of fully autonomous weapons, arm race between nations
-Soft topics such as how interviewed people in the book became intrerested in the field, their backgrounds, career trajectories, personal stories and future aspirations
Overall, I think, after reading the book, one gets a bigger picture of AI field, its origin and development stages, as well as modern research areas and current, future pressing issues. I personally was not aware that pioneering AI research was not statistical, with concepts and applications such as symbolic AI and expert systems. Also, I got to know some interesting facts about those ‘top AI people’, such as Geoffrey Hinton starting his education in psychology, and working a year as carpenter after graduate school.
Though interviews are fairly open ended, author tries to focus discussion around getting to know opinions of these 23 individuals on questions such as
-What are some of the most promising AI approaches and technologies and what breakthroughs in the field we might see in the near future
-Path to Artificial General Intelligence
-Impact of AI on economy and employment
-The issue of bias in data and possibility of regulations in AI research
-Development of fully autonomous weapons, arm race between nations
-Soft topics such as how interviewed people in the book became intrerested in the field, their backgrounds, career trajectories, personal stories and future aspirations
Overall, I think, after reading the book, one gets a bigger picture of AI field, its origin and development stages, as well as modern research areas and current, future pressing issues. I personally was not aware that pioneering AI research was not statistical, with concepts and applications such as symbolic AI and expert systems. Also, I got to know some interesting facts about those ‘top AI people’, such as Geoffrey Hinton starting his education in psychology, and working a year as carpenter after graduate school.
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