The Age of AI

And Our Human Future

By: Henry A. Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, Daniel Huttenlocher

Narrated by: Eric Pollins

Length: 7 hrs and 13 mins

Publisher's summary

Three of the world’s most accomplished and deep thinkers come together to explore Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the way it is transforming human society - and what this technology means for us all.

An AI learned to win chess by making moves human grand masters had never conceived. Another AI discovered a new antibiotic by analyzing molecular properties human scientists did not understand. Now, AI-powered jets are defeating experienced human pilots in simulated dogfights. AI is coming online in searching, streaming, medicine, education, and many other fields and, in so doing, transforming how humans are experiencing reality.

In The Age of AI, three leading thinkers have come together to consider how AI will change our relationships with knowledge, politics, and the societies in which we live. The Age of AI is an essential roadmap to our present and our future, an era unlike any that has come before.

©2021 Henry A. Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, Daniel Huttenlocher (P)2021 Little, Brown & Company

Eye opening flash of a future, already here!

Solid ground work of laying down some of the most important and troubling questioms about AI and AGI. i wish there had been a beefier
section on how AI actually works.
Someone must know...?
This is a thoroughly enjoyable and eye opening book which will reverbarate for years to come.

Insightful, thought provoking but needs supplemental material

Insightful and thought provoking for all sectors and strata of societies. However, it would be more useful, in terms of understanding and implementation of the authors’ suggestions, if accompanied by a workbook or PDF of questions, challenges and appropriate activities for different sectors of society. Without this follow up by the authors, the critical challenges of AI may be misunderstood, neglected or lead to unintended chaotic and potentially violent consequences.
I highly recommend this book to everyone, starting in high school!

A Great Starting Point

A well-written book on AI that is great for people newly interested in the topic to start with. Context in the larger AI debate is incredibly important to have, given the rapid pace of advancement and the increasing attention payed to the development of new AI systems.

All speculation. No examples.

All abstract speculation and assertions. Almost no examples.

Examples are needed when discussing a topic like this one.

A Must Read for the Modern Era

Love it or hate AI will be shaping our lives to an increasing degree going forward. Those who benefit most will be those who are informed.

Great for non tech nubes

Very well written and clear. The US USSR nuclear war chapters were less relevant but interesting.

Predictable Content

The Age of A.I. and Our Human Future offers a repetitive overview of familiar concepts, lacking fresh insights or inspiration. Its predictable content made the reading experience more of an obligation than an enlightenment, meriting a modest three-star rating.

Not what I expected

This is more like a biography of AI, very few technical details, it feels vague. I was expecting something more elaborated and technical.

Read like a robot wrote it

I was excited to dig into this but quickly got tired of the grand sentences that seemed repetitive. Honestly, near the end i was betting that they were going to surprise the reader by saying AI wrote the whole book… i would have given it 5 stars if that had been the case.

Somewhere in the middle for me

I really try to avoid books on AI — they just tend to send me down too many rabbit holes in my mind. But I heard Schmidt promoting this one on a few podcasts and thought it sounded interesting, so I picked it up.

In the end, I thought it was decent, though a little surface-level at times. It also felt like it raised more questions than it answered. In some ways, I was happy that it didn’t go too deep, since that meant I didn’t hit as many mental rabbit holes. But, in other ways, I was also disappointed with that fact, because it felt like the book didn’t get all that far. A catch-22 for sure.

If you’re looking for a somewhat rudimentary (and slightly more optimistic) look at AI than some of the other titles in its category, I would recommend this one. But if you’re looking for a real deep dive, I’m not quite sure you’ll find that here.