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3.95 AVERAGE
3.95 AVERAGE
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Good intro into AI and the debate about its impact on jobs, economy and society
I personally wished this book would have exclusively about China "vs" USA and the potential monopoly on AI technology and economy. It's still mostly about that, but it also covers a lot about the general rise of AI and robots.
Probably my favourite topics in this book was the cultural differences and what that means, the different stages of AI and how that effects differently in China/USA (for example labor) and the potential overall harm of a few companies having potential monopoly on "the new world order", as mentioned above.
Did I find this book a tad boring at times? Yes.
Is it still worth while to read? Yes!
Probably my favourite topics in this book was the cultural differences and what that means, the different stages of AI and how that effects differently in China/USA (for example labor) and the potential overall harm of a few companies having potential monopoly on "the new world order", as mentioned above.
Did I find this book a tad boring at times? Yes.
Is it still worth while to read? Yes!
informative
slow-paced
This book surprised me.
I found 'AI Superpowers' while looking for material to research AI's effects on future employment, in an effort to better educate myself for a writing project I hope to get a good start on during NaNoWriMo in November. As evidenced by my Goodreads activity, I generally avoid non-fiction to a fault. My main issue with many non-fiction books is generally that they are overlong. An author gets a book deal from an essay or two, and then stretches that essay from fourteen pages into 400, with lots of added evidence and very little added shape. I'm certain that thousands of books could counter my cynicism, and that my judgments have formed a clot in the flow of non-fiction I should be reading. Plus, I like reading about dragons and stuff like that.
However, Lee's book has shape. Each chapter is different from the previous in scope and argument, and each one needs the previous to function well. While Lee's personal life takes center stage in one chapter, it isn't for a contrived framework that all the chapters can hang from but as a necessary backdrop for his conclusions in the subsequent chapters.
Lee, a venture capitalist and prominent AI researcher, swings his credentials around with ease but without arrogance, which I appreciated, and instead of dismantling the differing arguments of other professionals, he uses their material to better argue his own conclusions. The problem with other research isn't that it was misguided or falsified but that it was somehow still incomplete, and Lee attempts to use conclusions from previous studies alongside new developments in the technology. This approach feels naturally diplomatic while still scientific, as if his respect for other researchers' work genuinely eclipses the drive to knock their conclusions down a peg and establish himself as the One True Voice of AI research.
What surprised me most was Lee's empathetic writing. Without losing his convictions in his own understanding of AI, he writes not as an aloof entrepreneur coaxing a book deal out of a vast, untouchable pile of knowledge, or as a dismayed doomsayer beckoning us toward despair in the face of the age of robotics. He considers ramifications of AI for both blue- and white-collar workers, without devaluing one or the other. He condemns vicious competition between countries' technological developments as being unsustainable, and fears more about the wealth gap new technology will further than for a Westworld-style AI uprising. In no uncertain terms he indicates how worthless human diagnoses, appraisals, and calculations will soon become (or already have become) in comparison to those of a competent AI creation, but never connects this to the worthlessness of humans themselves, who offer something AI will not master for centuries: love. The task for humanity then, he argues, is to lay the foundation of public policy that will best allow us to use this gift alongside the inevitable AI-dependent world we will soon found ourselves in.
And however corny that feels, it mattered to me.
I found 'AI Superpowers' while looking for material to research AI's effects on future employment, in an effort to better educate myself for a writing project I hope to get a good start on during NaNoWriMo in November. As evidenced by my Goodreads activity, I generally avoid non-fiction to a fault. My main issue with many non-fiction books is generally that they are overlong. An author gets a book deal from an essay or two, and then stretches that essay from fourteen pages into 400, with lots of added evidence and very little added shape. I'm certain that thousands of books could counter my cynicism, and that my judgments have formed a clot in the flow of non-fiction I should be reading. Plus, I like reading about dragons and stuff like that.
However, Lee's book has shape. Each chapter is different from the previous in scope and argument, and each one needs the previous to function well. While Lee's personal life takes center stage in one chapter, it isn't for a contrived framework that all the chapters can hang from but as a necessary backdrop for his conclusions in the subsequent chapters.
Lee, a venture capitalist and prominent AI researcher, swings his credentials around with ease but without arrogance, which I appreciated, and instead of dismantling the differing arguments of other professionals, he uses their material to better argue his own conclusions. The problem with other research isn't that it was misguided or falsified but that it was somehow still incomplete, and Lee attempts to use conclusions from previous studies alongside new developments in the technology. This approach feels naturally diplomatic while still scientific, as if his respect for other researchers' work genuinely eclipses the drive to knock their conclusions down a peg and establish himself as the One True Voice of AI research.
What surprised me most was Lee's empathetic writing. Without losing his convictions in his own understanding of AI, he writes not as an aloof entrepreneur coaxing a book deal out of a vast, untouchable pile of knowledge, or as a dismayed doomsayer beckoning us toward despair in the face of the age of robotics. He considers ramifications of AI for both blue- and white-collar workers, without devaluing one or the other. He condemns vicious competition between countries' technological developments as being unsustainable, and fears more about the wealth gap new technology will further than for a Westworld-style AI uprising. In no uncertain terms he indicates how worthless human diagnoses, appraisals, and calculations will soon become (or already have become) in comparison to those of a competent AI creation, but never connects this to the worthlessness of humans themselves, who offer something AI will not master for centuries: love. The task for humanity then, he argues, is to lay the foundation of public policy that will best allow us to use this gift alongside the inevitable AI-dependent world we will soon found ourselves in.
And however corny that feels, it mattered to me.
informative
fast-paced
Cannot recommend highly enough for technical and non-technical audiences. This book will show you the transformational change that is coming, and coming soon.
This book gives a good foundation on what is AI, its various stages, the ongoing war between China and USA and finally its implications on human beings with a slight drawback of sometimes being repetitive and sometimes loosing direction
I liked Kai's AI evolution model and his reasoning on how we need to think beyond just plain universal basic income schemes to solve the impending job loses due to AI. His views on how AI will effect the social inequality system is also interesting.
I did not like the divergence into his personal life and tragedy (as part of the book's narrative) and felt that it was unnecessary. It also felt that he was a bit too optimistic towards Chinese companies. His basic end bet is that China will be the next superpower on AI in the long run, hands down.
Would definitely recommend this to anyone who wants to understand from basics how the AI world is galloping ahead.
I liked Kai's AI evolution model and his reasoning on how we need to think beyond just plain universal basic income schemes to solve the impending job loses due to AI. His views on how AI will effect the social inequality system is also interesting.
I did not like the divergence into his personal life and tragedy (as part of the book's narrative) and felt that it was unnecessary. It also felt that he was a bit too optimistic towards Chinese companies. His basic end bet is that China will be the next superpower on AI in the long run, hands down.
Would definitely recommend this to anyone who wants to understand from basics how the AI world is galloping ahead.
A fascinating look at the past, present, and future developments in AI and in China by one of the pioneers of the field.
Kai-Fu Lee's "AI Superpowers" is really two books in one, each to some extent representative of the ongoing divide between techno-pessimists (e.g., Martin Ford, Hao Jingfang) and techno-optimists (Steven Pinker, Hans Rosling) over the role that artificial intelligence will play in the future of humanity. The first tw0-thirds of "AI Superpowers" offers up a sobering analysis of the race between China and the United States to implement dramatic new advances in AI capabilities. Lee's approach makes it clear that China enjoys distinct advantages in that race (a culture of ruthless entrepreneurial competition, a rich trove of mostly unprotected personal data, and a government willing to devote political and financial resources to achieve supremacy in the field). Fully aware of the potential downsides of a China-dominated AI world, Lee pivots in the final third of his book to the consideration of potential solutions to the inequalities and indignities of such a world. His idea for a "social investment stipend" that will encourage displaced workers to engage in pro-social activities like compassionate care for children and the elderly or education seems insufficient to the scale of the problem. Lee is right to point out that the best hopes of the techno-optimists will not be sufficient either, so credit him for offering up something concrete as an alternative. Nonetheless, if the political and economic upheavals that he describes so compellingly in the first part of his book come to pass, more than just an adjustment to the social contract may be required.
informative
medium-paced