The Age of AI

What a trio – former Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger; former CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt; and current dean of MIT College of Computing, Daniel Huttenlocher. These three teamed up to write a book on Artificial Intelligence, called The Age of AI: and Our Human Future. Schmidt and Huttenlocher might seem like natural fits for this topic, but Kissinger?  Kissinger, the 98 year old statesman, seems like that odd man out.  And yet, in an interview on the Tim Ferris podcast, Schmidt discusses Kissinger, saying that although he was in his nineties, the man vigorously pursued an education in artificial intelligence. As a student of history and politics, Kissinger brought a deep philosophic perspective to the book.

So what is The Age of AI about?  

The Age of AI provides an broad overview of the current state of artificial intelligence and its implications for a variety of fields.  The first couple of chapters covers that AI is and some of the advancements currently in the field.  The majority of the book, however, focuses on application. There are sections on social media, security, education, and geopolitics.  And then at the end of the book, the authors pontificate on where our future is headed. 

Much of the early part of the book I was familiar with.  For readers without much knowledge in the current state of AI, these chapter will undoubtedly be revealing.  I found chapter two to be a rambling discussion of philosophy, history, and technology.  The lack of theme to that chapter nearly had me set the book down and walk away.  

As the focus of the book moved to social media, again I found myself in familiar territory.  Nothing much illuminating, although the AI focus does help put the social networking environment into perspective.  

When the book switched to geopolitics, I found myself engrossed in the dangers and prospects.  You can tell Kissinger played a heavy roll in these sections, with his familiarity with the nuclear war threat from the 60s, 70s, and 80s.  The comparison of a weaponized AI threat to the nuclear war threat from last century was not lost on me.  This was perhaps the biggest takeaway I had form the book – that AI presents as big a threat to nation states as nuclear war did in its day.  That norms around using AI in war have yet to be established.  Yet without such norms, we could end up in a AI winter, much like we feared a nuclear winter should an all out nuclear war erupted.  

My rating

Overall, I found the book moderately good with some novel and interesting discussions.  However, some parts of the book rambled, without a clear theme or focus. I also have a moderate amount of knowledge about AI in general, so much of the early part of the book taught me nothing new.  But parts challenged my thinking and for that, I’m thankful I read it. 

4 out of 5 stars.