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Dr. el Kaliouby's story is intriguing and hard to put down. Following the thread of her academic pursuits throughout this book over the last week has been a joy, and this is one of the few memoirs I can say stands out from the rest. Grappling with scientific achievement, cultural expectations, family commitments, and her professional ambitions, Rana has given a full picture of her journey to founder and ultimately to CEO of an AI company deeply committed to valuing humanity over all else.
funny
informative
lighthearted
fast-paced
inspiring
slow-paced
I really struggled with the writing style. It felt like a Ted talk stretched out far too long into a book. Felt like there was only lip service to potential harms of this technology.
informative
inspiring
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
An interesting memoir. Some of the discussions on autism made me somewhat uncomfortable, but none were done with anything other than empathy and compassion. I felt like this book could have been shorter and still made the point.
Girl Decoded is a technology memoir about a woman's quest for emotionally intelligent computers and building emotion into AI. Rana el Kaliouby runs her own company, Affectiva, which specialises in Emotional AI, and in this book she charts how she got there as an Egyptian Muslim woman who studied at Cambridge, worked at MIT, and worked out how to prioritise her goals of bringing more empathy technology.
This is a fascinating look at how one person's choices and dream of making computer systems understand human emotions could come together, looking at the difficulties she faced as a woman based thousands of miles away from the places she worked and various culture shocks as she lived in different countries. The book is a mix of memoir focusing on her journey and, during the later part of the book, an introduction to some of the areas in which her work and company have affected technology. It was good to see engagement around data and users opting in, as obviously there are ethical and privacy issues around technology that can 'read' or understand emotions in some way, and it would be interesting to read more about the topic from el Kaliouby's perspective.
It is vital that books about technology, and specifically memoirs about technology, are written by and/or focus on people who aren't white men, not just for encouraging diverse groups of people to think about technology, but also considering different kinds of issues that might come out of technology. Tech shouldn't be the solution to everything, but it's good to hear the perspectives of people who are looking at these issues with different viewpoints, especially people who are pioneers in particular areas of computer science.
This is a fascinating look at how one person's choices and dream of making computer systems understand human emotions could come together, looking at the difficulties she faced as a woman based thousands of miles away from the places she worked and various culture shocks as she lived in different countries. The book is a mix of memoir focusing on her journey and, during the later part of the book, an introduction to some of the areas in which her work and company have affected technology. It was good to see engagement around data and users opting in, as obviously there are ethical and privacy issues around technology that can 'read' or understand emotions in some way, and it would be interesting to read more about the topic from el Kaliouby's perspective.
It is vital that books about technology, and specifically memoirs about technology, are written by and/or focus on people who aren't white men, not just for encouraging diverse groups of people to think about technology, but also considering different kinds of issues that might come out of technology. Tech shouldn't be the solution to everything, but it's good to hear the perspectives of people who are looking at these issues with different viewpoints, especially people who are pioneers in particular areas of computer science.
I might return to this someday, but for right now the repetitive nature of the book and poor writing is making it difficult to enjoy. I was hoping for more science discussion, but almost halfway through and it is still mostly a memoir.
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
"Girl Decoded" was a delightful read, both as an introduction to #emotionalAI as well as an autobiography of a successful non-white female AI researcher/entrepreneur. Kaliouby's optimism for technology is refreshing!
powerful story, but the writing could have been more powerful.