Artificial Intelligence

AI expert Yorick Wilks takes a journey through the history of artificial intelligence up to the present day, examining its origins, controversies, and achievements, as well as looking into just how it works. He also considers the future, assessing whether these technologies could menace our way of life and how we are all likely to benefit from AI applications in the years to come.

Confused about AI and worried about what it means for your future and the future of the world? You’re not alone. AI is everywhere—and few things are surrounded by so much hype, misinformation, and misunderstanding. In AI Snake Oil, computer scientists Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor cut through the confusion to give you an essential understanding of how AI works, why it often doesn’t, where it might be useful or harmful, and when you should suspect that companies are using AI hype to sell AI snake oil—products that don’t work, and probably never will.

For all of neuroscience's advances, we've made little progress on its biggest question: How do simple cells in the brain create intelligence? Jeff Hawkins and his team discovered that the brain uses map-like structures to build a model of the world - not just one model, but hundreds of thousands of models of everything we know. This discovery allows Hawkins to answer important questions about how we perceive the world, why we have a sense of self, and the origin of high-level thought.

Artificial intelligence surrounds us. More and more of the systems and services you interact with every day are based on AI technology. Most AI is narrowly specific; that is, it can only do a single thing, in a single context. Human intelligence is different. We can solve a variety of tasks, including those we have not seen before. In Artificial General Intelligence, Julian Togelius explores technical approaches to developing more general artificial intelligence and asks what general AI would mean for human civilization.

In November 2022, OpenAI released GPT-4 in a chatbot form to the public. In just two months, it claimed 100 million users—the fastest app to ever reach this benchmark. Since then, AI has become an all-consuming topic, popping up on the news, in ads, on your messenger apps, and in conversations with friends and family. But as AI becomes ubiquitous and grows at an ever-increasing pace, what does it mean for the financial markets? MoneyGPT shows that the danger is not that AI will malfunction, but that it will function exactly as intended.

Three of the world’s most accomplished and deep thinkers come together to explore Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the way it is transforming human society - and what this technology means for us all.

Kip has a secret. A young boy who lives with his uncle at the Starswarm Station research outpost on planet Paradise, he has heard a voice in his head for as long as he can remember. The voice guides him in all his decisions, helping him through situations with useful information and helpful insight.

It has a dark past - one in which a number of humans were killed. A past that caused it to christen itself "Murderbot." But it has only vague memories of the massacre that spawned that title, and it wants to know more. Teaming up with a Research Transport vessel named ART (you don't want to know what the "A" stands for), Murderbot heads to the mining facility where it went rogue.

The world has never been so unstable. Now, more than ever, we need to understand our history, learn from our mistakes, and embrace science and technology as we push into the future. In his debut book, New Thinking: The Technology and Science That Transformed Our World, Dagogo Altraide of YouTube's ColdFusion breaks down the history of gamechanger breakthroughs in the world of science and technology that have shaped our modern world and will impact the future.

Leading the field of artificial intelligence, Halfway, a subsidiary of Soul-Tech, provides customers with the opportunity to digitally upload their minds so that in the eventuality of their death, loved ones will be able to communicate with an AI simulation and gain closure. But at what cost?A year after her brother Mark’s death, Florence is still consumed by grief. And though her parents encourage her not to dwell on the past, Florence decides to visit Halfway and speak to the simulation of Mark that was created not long before his passing.

In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, computer scientist John Kelleher offers an accessible and concise but comprehensive introduction to the fundamental technology at the heart of the artificial intelligence revolution. Kelleher explains some of the basic concepts in deep learning, presents a history of advances in the field, and discusses the current state of the art.

For people with no prior knowledge or experience who want to delve into the world of artificial intelligence, Introduction to Artificial Intelligence and Generative AI for Novice is the ideal resource. This book demystifies AI's complicated ideas and simplifies them for listeners who are just getting started. The book examines the capabilities of AI that allow machines to make art, music, and other forms of creative content with a focus on generative AI.

If you read (or listen to) nothing else on artificial intelligence and machine learning, listen to these ten articles. We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you understand the future direction of AI, bring your AI initiatives to scale, and use AI to transform your organization.

For the last 100,000 years, we Sapiens have accumulated enormous power. But despite all our discoveries, inventions, and conquests, we now find ourselves in an existential crisis. The world is on the verge of ecological collapse. Misinformation abounds. And we are rushing headlong into the age of AI—a new information network that threatens to annihilate us. For all that we have accomplished, why are we so self-destructive?

Artificial intelligence is smarter than humans. It can process information at lightning speed and remain focused on specific tasks without distraction. AI can see into the future, predicting outcomes and even use sensors to see around physical and virtual corners. So why does Intelligence frequently get it so wrong? The answer is us. Humans design the algorithms that define the way that AI works and the processed information reflects an imperfect world.

In IRREPLACEABLE, you will discover techniques to boost your career using AI—without losing your job to automation; secrets to unlocking your uniquely human abilities—ones AI can never replicate; counterintuitive methods to raise Future-ready children; strategies to avoid falling into the "AI Obesity" trap; and blueprints for leveraging AI to turn your company into an unstoppable force of innovation.

As machines become capable of doing most of the work people have performed for centuries, we are headed for a massive social reorganization. In The Five Forces That Change Everything, Steve Hoffman, venture capitalist and CEO of Founders Space, takes you on a journey to see what the most brilliant minds of our age are dreaming up.

In Robot-Proof, Northeastern University president Joseph Aoun proposes a way to educate the next generation of college students to invent, to create, and to discover - to fill needs in society that even the most sophisticated artificial intelligence agent cannot. A "robot-proof" education, Aoun argues, is not concerned solely with topping up students' minds with high-octane facts. Rather, it calibrates them with a creative mindset and the mental elasticity to invent, discover, or create something valuable to society.

What will the year 2084 hold for you - for your friends, for your family, and for our society? Are we doomed to the grim dystopia imagined in George Orwell's 1984? In 2084, scientist and philosopher John Lennox will introduce you to a kaleidoscope of ideas: the key developments in technological enhancement, bioengineering, and, in particular, artificial intelligence. You will discover the current capacity of AI, its advantages and disadvantages, the facts and the fiction, as well as potential future implications.

Artificial Intelligence helps choose what books you buy, what movies you see, and even who you date. It puts the "smart" in your smartphone and soon it will drive your car. It makes most of the trades on Wall Street, and controls vital energy, water, and transportation infrastructure. But Artificial Intelligence can also threaten our existence. In as little as a decade, AI could match and then surpass human intelligence. Corporations and government agencies are pouring billions into achieving AI’s Holy Grail - human-level intelligence.