Summer Reading List: 11 Books That Will Help You Navigate the New Age Of AI

Photo by Link Hoang on Unsplash

It’s hard to believe that summer is already here. Where I live, outside of Philadelphia, the nights in May have been pretty cold, so I’m still trying to get used to the idea that the time for backyard barbecues and hanging out by the pool has already arrived. Still, summer is by far my favorite season, so I gotta have faith!

It also appears that we’ve entered the dawn of a new age of artificial intelligence. New services like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard, while not exactly great leaps forward in technology, have introduced generative AI to the greater public. Every day millions of people are using these services to do real work.

Like it or not, we’re all going to have to learn to navigate this new age and figure out what it means for us. Much like earlier innovations, such as smartphones and the Internet, AI will alter our lives in ways that are hard to predict and we’ll all have to figure out how to navigate the opportunities and the dangers. Here are 11 books that will help you do that.

The Master Algorithm by Pedro Domingos

We tend to think of technologies as monoliths, single objects that we use for specific purposes. An automobile is a mode of transportation that gets us from Point A to Point B, as well as a personal space in which we live a life apart. An iPhone is a communication device, as well as an access point for other technologies.

Yet the truth is that every technology is made of different components that shape its functionality. A car has an internal combustion engine, transmission, etc. An iPhone is made up of hardware and software. The components themselves can be broken down further and, as we learn about them, we improve our understanding.

In The Master Algorithm veteran AI researcher Pedro Domingos explains that there are five basic approaches to machine learning, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. Every machine learning system is, in fact, a combination of these approaches and, if you want to understand how AI functions, you first need to understand its underlying components.

Besides being a leader in the AI community, Domingos is a good communicator and this book is surprisingly…