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mateuslevisf 's review for:
MANIAC
by BenjamÃn Labatut
The summary of this book is that it is a "History of Artificial Intelligence" book written by a novel writer. It's a great book, analogous to what the Oppenheimer movie is but in book form and mainly about John von Neumann - one of the few guys in Oppenheimer's time who could be considered smarter and even more accomplished than Oppie himself.
What is fundamentally different between Oppenheimer and John von Neumann is that Oppenheimer really seemed to live a character development arc and that was well showcased in the movie. Johnny did not live that same arc, and this book does an amazing job of not only showcasing that but making the (very probably) smartest person who has ever lived more human nonetheless. And what is more amazing is that von Neumann's life (along with the brief part 1 about Paul Ehrenfest) is used as an allegory regarding the chaos and uncertainty that flooded humanity with the World Wars, the advance of technology and everything else that happened in the early 20th century. It's truly amazing storytelling, told by real people. I can't vouch for how true the narrative voices ended up being but at least the facts I read and searched up during my readings were all real so I think the author avoided straying too far from reality.
The only thing that makes this not a 5 star is the ending, which feels like a written version of the AlphaGo documentary. And I didn't even watch it. Maybe it's because I study Reinforcement Learning for my master's but I also felt it was poorly researched, or at least not as well researched as Part 1 and Part 2. I think the book could've ended with Part 2 and that would've been amazing already; part 3 does make the book closer to our reality but it just lacks the oomph the other parts have and the ending is too flat and in my view too weak compared to the rest of the book. Which is a compliment to parts 1 & 2. But I think this is a must-read and I strongly believe someone can make an amazing book about this a decade from now, when everyone forgets about Oppenheimer.
What is fundamentally different between Oppenheimer and John von Neumann is that Oppenheimer really seemed to live a character development arc and that was well showcased in the movie. Johnny did not live that same arc, and this book does an amazing job of not only showcasing that but making the (very probably) smartest person who has ever lived more human nonetheless. And what is more amazing is that von Neumann's life (along with the brief part 1 about Paul Ehrenfest) is used as an allegory regarding the chaos and uncertainty that flooded humanity with the World Wars, the advance of technology and everything else that happened in the early 20th century. It's truly amazing storytelling, told by real people. I can't vouch for how true the narrative voices ended up being but at least the facts I read and searched up during my readings were all real so I think the author avoided straying too far from reality.
The only thing that makes this not a 5 star is the ending, which feels like a written version of the AlphaGo documentary. And I didn't even watch it. Maybe it's because I study Reinforcement Learning for my master's but I also felt it was poorly researched, or at least not as well researched as Part 1 and Part 2. I think the book could've ended with Part 2 and that would've been amazing already; part 3 does make the book closer to our reality but it just lacks the oomph the other parts have and the ending is too flat and in my view too weak compared to the rest of the book. Which is a compliment to parts 1 & 2. But I think this is a must-read and I strongly believe someone can make an amazing book about this a decade from now, when everyone forgets about Oppenheimer.