A Brief History of Artificial Intelligence

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

By: Michael Wooldridge

Narrated by: Glen McCready

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

Like an enjoyable freshman history class

Both the writing and narration of this book are top-shelf, enjoyable and informative. The book manages to put forth a lot of historical background in an easy to follow story-like format with added personal reflections from the author that don't distract or make the historical journey biographical or all about Woodridge. It's from 2021 and I hope the book has been successful enough that he'll put out further editions.

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!

The superb quality of the narration made an impressive difference.

The story is interesting, captivating, and pedagogical. It covers the entire history of AI, including its major events, people, and trends, explaining important concepts without excessive detail that could make the book too dense. As a result, you can follow the reasoning and learn about the subject in a pleasant way. The amazing narrator is also a crucial component.

Good Context

This was a very good historical overview of how we got here with AI. I think that we need to know where we have been in order to see where we might be heading. This book helps.

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.