A Brief History of Artificial Intelligence

What It Is, Where We Are, and Where We Are Going

By: Michael Wooldridge

Narrated by: Glen McCready

Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins

Publisher's summary

From Oxford's leading AI researcher comes a fun and accessible tour through the history and future of one of the most cutting edge and misunderstood field in science: artificial intelligence

The somewhat ill-defined long-term aim of AI is to build machines that are conscious, self-aware, and sentient; machines capable of the kind of intelligent autonomous action that currently only people are capable of. As an AI researcher with 25 years of experience, professor Mike Wooldridge has learned to be obsessively cautious about such claims, while still promoting an intense optimism about the future of the field. There have been genuine scientific breakthroughs that have made AI systems possible in the past decade that the founders of the field would have hailed as miraculous. Driverless cars and automated translation tools are just two examples of AI technologies that have become a practical, everyday reality in the past few years, and which will have a huge impact on our world.

While the dream of conscious machines remains, Professor Wooldridge believes, a distant prospect, the floodgates for AI have opened. Wooldridge's A Brief History of Artificial Intelligence is an exciting romp through the history of this groundbreaking field - a one-stop-shop for AI's past, present, and world-changing future.

A Macmillan Audio production from Flatiron Books

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2021 Michael Wooldridge (P)2021 Macmillan Audio

Fantastic!

A great intro tracing the history and evolution of AI. it's straight forward and should be accessible to anyone curious. He ends with how he thinks AI will evolve. Highly recommended!

Nice Overview

I enjoyed the listen overall. The narration takes a bit of time to get used to, but it was fine after a few hours. The level is best for readers seeking a broad historical basis to provide context for further AI understanding. The field of AI is
rapidly advancing so don’t expect the latest advances to be included in any book.

A must read for AI affectionados

The book's recounting of AI history truly stands out, earning it a solid four-star rating. The discussions on AI risks and machine consciousness are particularly well-crafted, contributing significantly to the overall quality of the book. Nestled between these sections is a speculative exploration of AI's future direction. Regrettably, this part hasn't aged gracefully, failing to foresee the emergence of generative AI. Readers might consider skipping these sections. The narration imparts a distinctive flavor to the book. Presented in received pronunciation, it effectively brings out the nuances of the diction, enhancing the overall rendering of the authors message.

Informative and mostly fun

I enjoyed the book. It was informative and entertaining. A couple parts lost my attention somewhat, but overall it was good to well done. The voice performer did a great job.

One observation is that for all the conversation on this book about how amazing humans are and how very difficult it is to try to achieve anything close to human level intelligence or consciousness by our brightest AI researchers, the author concludes the book by saying "evolutionary forces" somehow created what we enjoy and experience as humans. That no consideration for intelligent design entered the picture is fascinating.

career for the aged

This was great for educating on the begining and basic foundation of AI and Machine Learning. Gave me enough to look for more. Being older with no current knowledge in programing I feel more informed about AI. No discussion of programming programs. You will hear this is nothing new and might be surprised how far back it goes.

Focus on attempts to solve problems nobody has (ie the burden of vehicle ownership)

Describing vehicle ownership and the attendant ability/independence/dignity/freedom as a burden, or a problem that needs to be solved. what a loser.

Great for the history part

First of all I should probably declare that I have a degree in CS since that severely impacted how approachable and interesting this book was to me. For others, your mileage may vary.

This book can be split in two, first the history part which is terrific. It does a really good job of detailing all the major theories and developments of AI since the beginning and up to deep learning. This is probably the best book on the history of AI that I’ve read.

The other part of the book is where the author applies his extensive expertise in the field to predict what future developments might entail. This part I did not like as well, often I disagreed with or didn’t understand his reasoning and some of his predictions have already proven false in the short time since this was published.

Almost 4 stars, but I settled on 3.

very basic.

I hoped there was more meat to the bone. I will be a good read if you have no clue about the topic.