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A really engaging examination of the progress of AI, its uses and its impact. Lee covers its early pioneers, progress through Chinese and American businesses, the 4 types of AI, internet, business, perception and autonomous. It's easy to read and understand because Lee includes a nunber of specific examples of real life application, for example on the internet, where AI makes recommendations to keep users engaged, as well as imagined applications in the future, such as a supermarket which combines a profile of shoppers and, their preferences with sales and promotion data to prompt purchases, drones swarms which fight bushfires and individual learning pathways for primary and high school students.
The later chapters tackle the impact of AI on jobs, and Lee draws on Moravec's Paradox - that while algorithms can develop to mimic the intellectual capabilities of adult, it is far more difficult to give robots the motor skills of a toddler. Lee places different occupations in the context of AI's capabilities - that the jobs we will no longer need are the asocial, repetitive and data driven ones but we will still very much need people to do the social work of talking to each other. Lee also makes the point that AI is drawn to monopolies - the better the product, the more users, the more users, the more data, the more data there is, the better the product, leading to more users and data. This builds a large barrier to entry. While I enjoyed most chapters and Lee's observations, a critique I have is that Lee continually raises the cultural differes and the contexts which differentiate the Chinese and American states, for example, how Chinese people have been willing to sacrifice some privacy for convenience. But all through the book, Lee shys away from making a clear determination about how the ethical and social risks can be addressed, instead repeating it will depend on government decisions and indvidual countries in their cultural context to adapt, and that we should be open-minded to different approaches to AI governance from across the world. While that could be a book in itself, it doesn't make much sense not to analyse any aspect of this when it forms such a significant difference in the way China and the America have developed their approach to AI and new technologies. Lee is also thoughtful about the purpose and impact of UBI - suggesting that many entrepreneurs see it as a quick all encompassing fix which means they don't need to consider comprehensive social policy.
Rather than UBI, Lee advocates for a social investment stipend, a payment to those who invest their time in a 'kind, compassionate and creative society', intended to be part of a new social contract, one which values socially beneficial activity the way we currently reward economically productive activity. Lee points to caring roles, particularly unpaid caring roles, which suggest there is a clear gap between what we value economically and what is important to us as a society. This and Lee's other reflections about the actual worth and value of humans in a society made AI Superpowers a worthwhile read.
The later chapters tackle the impact of AI on jobs, and Lee draws on Moravec's Paradox - that while algorithms can develop to mimic the intellectual capabilities of adult, it is far more difficult to give robots the motor skills of a toddler. Lee places different occupations in the context of AI's capabilities - that the jobs we will no longer need are the asocial, repetitive and data driven ones but we will still very much need people to do the social work of talking to each other. Lee also makes the point that AI is drawn to monopolies - the better the product, the more users, the more users, the more data, the more data there is, the better the product, leading to more users and data. This builds a large barrier to entry. While I enjoyed most chapters and Lee's observations, a critique I have is that Lee continually raises the cultural differes and the contexts which differentiate the Chinese and American states, for example, how Chinese people have been willing to sacrifice some privacy for convenience. But all through the book, Lee shys away from making a clear determination about how the ethical and social risks can be addressed, instead repeating it will depend on government decisions and indvidual countries in their cultural context to adapt, and that we should be open-minded to different approaches to AI governance from across the world. While that could be a book in itself, it doesn't make much sense not to analyse any aspect of this when it forms such a significant difference in the way China and the America have developed their approach to AI and new technologies. Lee is also thoughtful about the purpose and impact of UBI - suggesting that many entrepreneurs see it as a quick all encompassing fix which means they don't need to consider comprehensive social policy.
Rather than UBI, Lee advocates for a social investment stipend, a payment to those who invest their time in a 'kind, compassionate and creative society', intended to be part of a new social contract, one which values socially beneficial activity the way we currently reward economically productive activity. Lee points to caring roles, particularly unpaid caring roles, which suggest there is a clear gap between what we value economically and what is important to us as a society. This and Lee's other reflections about the actual worth and value of humans in a society made AI Superpowers a worthwhile read.