Tag: Artificial Intelligence

Books about Artificial Intelligence

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Artificial intelligence, also known as AI, can be an overwhelming topic to try to understand. If you aren’t sure where to start and are looking for some books about artificial intelligence, check out the following titles. This is by no means a comprehensive list! If you’re looking for more titles, let us know. As of this writing, all of these titles are owned by the Davenport Public Library. Descriptions are provided by the publishers.

The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want by Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna

A smart, incisive look at the technologies sold as artificial intelligence, the drawbacks and pitfalls of technology sold under this banner, and why it’s crucial to recognize the many ways in which AI hype covers for a small set of power-hungry actors at work and in the world.

Is artificial intelligence going to take over the world? Have big tech scientists created an artificial lifeform that can think on its own? Is it going to put authors, artists, and others out of business? Are we about to enter an age where computers are better than humans at everything?

The answer to these questions, linguist Emily M. Bender and sociologist Alex Hanna make clear, is “no,” “they wish,” “LOL,” and “definitely not.” This kind of thinking is a symptom of a phenomenon known as “AI hype.” Hype looks and smells fishy: It twists words and helps the rich get richer by justifying data theft, motivating surveillance capitalism, and devaluing human creativity in order to replace meaningful work with jobs that treat people like machines. In The AI Con, Bender and Hanna offer a sharp, witty, and wide-ranging take-down of AI hype across its many forms.

Bender and Hanna show you how to spot AI hype, how to deconstruct it, and how to expose the power grabs it aims to hide. Armed with these tools, you will be prepared to push back against AI hype at work, as a consumer in the marketplace, as a skeptical newsreader, and as a citizen holding policymakers to account. Together, Bender and Hanna expose AI hype for what it is: a mask for Big Tech’s drive for profit, with little concern for who it affects. – Harper

AI for Small Business: from marketing and sales to HR and operations, how to employ the power of artificial intelligence for small business success by Phil Pallen

An essential guide for small business owners and entrepreneurs looking to use artificial intelligence to automate tasks, improve customer service, make better decisions, grow their businesses faster, and stay ahead of the AI curve.

ChatGPT, machine learning, automation, natural language processing. Every day, it seems like there is a new AI term to learn and a new promise of how it will improve your work. But with tons of conflicting information, small business owners are left wondering exactly how to leverage AI technology to grow and, more importantly, stay competitive with larger companies.

Cutting through the buzzwords and media frenzy, AI for Small Business is the road map to take you from overwhelmed to empowered. Opening with simple explanations of AI basics and clarification of myths, you are empowered to assess your goals to create a comprehensive AI strategy for your business—including information on selecting tools, a timeline for implementation, and ideas for scaling systems. This essential guide then walks you through practical AI applications for each department, informing you how to use AI to automate tasks, make better decisions, and grow your business in all areas including:
-Sales
-Marketing
-Social media and content creation
-Customer service
-Finance and accounting
-Operations and logistics
-Human resources and talent management
-Data analysis and decision-making
-Security and legal compliance
-R&D and innovation

Author Phil Pallen is a brand strategist who uses his AI expertise to help hundreds of businesses scale and grow profits. In AI for Small Business, case studies from Pallen’s successful clients illustrate how real small business owners are applying AI technology in various ways. Plus, ready-to-try prompt sidebars and specific product recommendations allow you to start employing the power of AI in real time. – Adams Media

How to Think about AI: A Guide for the Perplexed by Richard E. Susskind

Revealing the unfolding story of Artificial Intelligence, Richard Susskind presents a short non-technical guide that challenges us to think differently about AI. Susskind brings AI out of computing laboratories, big tech companies, and start-ups – and into everyday life.

In recent years, and certainly since the launch of ChatGPT, there has been massive public and professional interest in Artificial Intelligence. But people are confused about what AI is, what it can and cannot do, what is yet to come, and whether AI is good or bad for humanity and civilisation – whether it will provide solutions to mankind’s major challenges or become our gravest existential threat. There is also confusion about how we should regulate AI and where we should draw moral boundaries on its use.

In How To Think About AI, Richard Susskind draws on his experience of working on AI since the early 1980s. For Susskind, balancing the benefits and threats of artificial intelligence is the defining challenge of our age. He explores the history of AI and possible scenarios for its future. His views on AI are not always conventional. He positions ChatGPT and generative AI as no more than the latest chapter in the ongoing story of AI and claims we are still at the foothills of developments. He argues that to think responsibly about the impact of AI requires us to look well beyond today’s technologies, suggesting that not-yet-invented technologies will have far greater impact on us in the 2030s than the tools we have today. This leads Susskind to discuss the possibility of conscious machines, magnificent new AI-enabled virtual worlds, and the impact of AI on the evolution of biological humans. – Oxford University Press

More than Words: How to Think about Writing in the Age of AI by John Warner

In the age of artificial intelligence, drafting an essay is as simple as typing a prompt and pressing enter. What does this mean for the art of writing? According to longtime writing teacher John Warner: not very much.

More Than Words argues that generative AI programs like ChatGPT not only can kill the student essay but should, since these assignments don’t challenge students to do the real work of writing. To Warner, writing is thinking—discovering your ideas while trying to capture them on a page—and feeling—grappling with what it fundamentally means to be human. The fact that we ask students to complete so many assignments that a machine could do is a sign that something has gone very wrong with writing instruction. More Than Words calls for us to use AI as an opportunity to reckon with how we work with words—and how all of us should rethink our relationship with writing. – Basic Books

These Strange New Minds: How AI Learned to Talk and What it Means by Christopher Summerfield

An insider look at the Large Language Models (LLMs) that are revolutionizing our relationship to technology, exploring their surprising history, what they can and should do for us today, and where they will go in the future—from an AI pioneer and neuroscientist

In this accessible, up-to-date, and authoritative examination of the world’s most radical technology, neuroscientist and AI researcher Christopher Summerfield explores what it really takes to build a brain from scratch. We have entered a world in which disarmingly human-like chatbots, such as ChatGPT, Claude and Bard, appear to be able to talk and reason like us – and are beginning to transform everything we do. But can AI ‘think’, ‘know’ and ‘understand’? What are its values? Whose biases is it perpetuating? Can it lie and if so, could we tell? Does their arrival threaten our very existence?

These Strange New Minds charts the evolution of intelligent talking machines and provides us with the tools to understand how they work and how we can use them. Ultimately, armed with an understanding of AI’s mysterious inner workings, we can begin to grapple with the existential question of our age: have we written ourselves out of history or is a technological utopia ahead? – Viking

Unruly: Fighting Back When Politics, AI, and Law Upend the Rules of Business by Sean West

A bold exploration of modern business risk in a volatile world where traditional rules no longer apply

In Unruly: Fighting Back when Politics, AI, and Law Upend the Rules of Business, co-founder of software company Hence Technologies and former Global Deputy CEO of Eurasia Group, Sean West, delivers a startlingly insightful new take on how politics, technology and law are converging to upend the rules of business, generating dangerous risks and incredible opportunities. West convincingly argues that we must understand all three factors to get leverage over the future – a future filled with eroding rule of law, deepfakes that upend elections and court decisions, government pressure for businesses to be patriotic, robot lobbyists, a flood of automated legal claims pointed directly at your company and much more.

Unruly offers detailed, practical advice for how to understand the world ahead, how to be resilient in the face of innumerable and complex challenges, and how to surround your business with the people and technology you need to excel in this environment.

Inside the book:

  • A framework for understanding all of the pressures on modern corporations from the convergence of geopolitics, technology and law.
  • Strategies for turning your company’s legal department into a source of enduring competitive advantage
  • How to navigate government pressure for nationalism when you have a global footprint
  • Approaches to winning in a world where courts are politicized and the law is increasingly automated, built on interviews with top experts
  • Ways to deal with the backlash to ESG at a company level

Perfect for executives, managers, entrepreneurs, founders, and other business leaders, Unruly is also a must-read for general counsels and the advisors who serve them. – Wiley

Using Artificial Intelligence: Absolute Beginner’s Guide by Michael Miller

Who knew how simple AI could be?

Using Artificial Intelligence Absolute Beginners Guide will have you getting the most of popular AI tools in no time! Heres a small sample of what youll find inside:

  • Learn how AI can make everyday life easier.
  • Get tips for using AI to write, gather information, get advice, and more.
  • Discover how to use AI to generate imagesrealistic and fantastical!
  • Examine the risks and rewards of artificial intelligence.
  • Find step-by-step instructions for todays most popular AI tools, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Meta AI, Microsoft Copilot, and Midjourney.
  • Find out how to tell when something is AI generatedso you dont get fooled by deepfakes.

Artificial intelligence can be fun and productiveif you know which tools to use and when. Using Artificial Intelligence Absolute Beginners Guide tells you all about todays major AI tools and shows how to get the best results from them. Youll learn to use AI for turning your ideas into art, writing a great email, sharpening your resume, and even sparking conversation. Instantly research everything from planning a trip to making your next big purchase. Its all a matter of picking the right AI tool and constructing the right prompt. Youll also learn to protect yourself from the risks of AI and distinguish AI fakes from the real thing. Everything you need to know is here in this book! – Pearson/AARP

AI : ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

- Jill Leave a comment

As artificial intelligence continues to evolve, reshape industries, and affect our daily lives, it is critical for humans to understand the fundamental principles and implications of this technology. The most basic idea of AI refers to the ability of machines (computers) to perform tasks that require human intelligence, such as language understanding, learning, problem-solving, and reasoning. Because AI applications have begun to permeate our lives, it is important to familiarize ourselves with the basics, including machine learning and neural networks. This can help demystify how these systems operate and give us a better grasp of their potential applications, enabling individuals to engage in informed discussions about AI’s role in society and its impact on jobs, privacy, and ethics.

In particular, understanding the ethical implications of AI is vital. AI systems are becoming more integrated into a wide variety of decision-making processes, including hiring practices and law enforcement. Being aware of potential issues such as bias, transparency, and accountability will become increasingly important to recognize and mitigate. Unfair outcomes are possible if AI algorithms inadvertently perpetuate existing biases found in their training data. Therefore, it is crucial for both developers and users to demand and establish ethical practices that will promote fairness. This is where regulation and oversight of the industry is necessary in order to ensure, or at least influence, a future in which AI technologies are used responsibly to benefit all.

Lastly, as AI continues to advance, it becomes more important than ever to embrace lifelong learning. The light-speed pace of technological advancement means that knowledge and skills can quickly become outdated. Whether in the workplace or our personal lives, we can adapt to new AI tools and systems by having a mindset of continuous education. Learning about AI, its capabilities and limitations, can help us better navigate the challenges and opportunities ahead in an increasingly AI-driven world.

If you don’t know much about AI, here are a few NON-FICTION books (plus a DVD) to get you started:

            

Robots, ethics and the future of jobs by Sean McDonagh

The A.I. generation : shaping our global future with thinking machines by Olaf Groth

A.I. Revolution by NOVA

AI snake oil : what artificial intelligence can do, what it can’t, and how to tell the difference by Arvind Narayanan

Rebooting AI : building artificial intelligence we can trust by Gary Marcus

Exploring the power of ChatGPT : applications, techniques, and implications by Eric Sarrion

Guardrails : guiding human decisions in the age of AI by Urs Gasser

The Algorithm : how AI decides who gets hired, monitored, promoted, and fired and why we need to fight back now by Hilke Schellmann

The AI-Savvy Leader by David De Cremer

You look like a thing and I love you : how artificial intelligence works and why it’s making the world a weirder place by Janelle Shane

Teaching with AI by José Antonio Bowen

OR

Try these FICTION books to read a story with an AI theme or character:

The Chaos Agent by Mark Greaney

Hum by Helen Phillips

Mal Goes to War by Edward Ashton

William by Mason Coile

Red Sky Mourning by Jack Carr
The Kraken Project by Douglas J. Preston
Loneliness & Company by Charlee Dyroff
.

A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers

- Ann Leave a comment

A classic story of love and friendship, sacrifice and resilience, A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers also just happens to be located in a fantasical world of distant planets, casual space travel and aliens of every variety.

Lovelace is an artificial intelligence (AI) that has been transferred into a humaniod form (a “kit”) by an alien named Pepper. At first confused and disoriented (her previous work had been within the walls of a spaceship) she names herself Sidra. She quickly gains intelligence, but struggles to live in chaotic world without walls.

Jane 23 is an enhanced human bred to work in a factory sorting scrap. Her life is strictly regulated and anything outside of the factory is completely unknown to her. One day an explosion blows a hole in one of the walls and she sees sky for the first time. Consumed by curiosity, she goes back to see it again. Nearly caught by one of the Mothers (robot caretakers) she runs blindly, is chased by wild animals and is almost caught until a small shuttle in the massive scrap pile opens a door and helps her escape. The shuttle is run by Owl, an AI that lives in the ship.

Many years later Jane, with Owl’s help, escapes the planet and arrives in Port Cortisol, a busy international space port where she changes her name to Pepper and blends into the world around her. However she is haunted by the loss of the shuttle and her beloved Owl who had raised her as a true mother would and for whom she is always searching.

I would categorize this as a “cozy sci-fi”. There are no space battles or massive alien invasions wiping out civilizations. Bad things happen – witness the factory planet of enslaved girls – but there is a lot of good too. Many diverse aliens with many diverse forms co-exist, mostly peacefully and respectfully.  These stories quickly connect in interesting and satisfying ways. Friendships are formed, adventures are shared and the line between AI and humanoid blurs. The world building is intricate and well developed but never intrusive. A lovely and heartwarming novel.

Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World (DVD)

- Brenda Leave a comment

Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World is a documentary DVD that explores the influence of the internet on human life.

It begins by following internet pioneer Leonard Kleinrock into a room on the UCLA campus where the first internet communication took place at 10:30pm on Oct 29, 1969, between UCLA and Stanford Research Institute. Kleinrock describes the moment he began typing the very first internet message, “Login.” Before he could complete it, the computer system crashed, and the first message transmitted by the internet turned out to be “Lo” – thus the movie’s name.

Danny Hillis, an American inventor and computer scientist, describes the phone book he owned back in the early days of the internet. It contained the names of everyone on the internet. Can you imagine a directory of everyone on the internet today? It is estimated it would be 72 miles thick.

Director Werner Herzog takes us to Stanford Dept of Robotics, where we learn how the discovery of biomolecule patterns was enhanced by the creation of a crowdsourced video game called EteRNA. Crowdsourcing, as defined by Wikipedia (itself a famous example of crowdsourcing) is “to divide work between participants to achieve a cumulative result.” In this case, a videogame played by a multitude of interested laypeople -“lawyers, grandmas, students, bedridden people” contributed in useful ways to the collective knowledge base about RNA (Ribonucleic Acid), which is present in all living cells. Crowdsourcing has been used in a variety of other ways for the common good. In addition to Wikipedia, another well-known example of crowdsourcing is crowdfunding, the collection of funds from a crowd (for example, Kickstarter). If you would like to learn more about how you can be similarly involved in contributing to the universe of knowledge (sometimes even by playing video games!) see this list of crowdsourcing projects.

While at Stanford, Herzog takes us to Professor of Computer Science and director of the Artificial Intelligence Lab, Sebastian Thrun, who is designing self-driving cars. He addressed the concern for safety of self-driving cars by saying, “When a computer makes a mistake, it learns from it, along with all the other computers (in use and unborn.) When a human makes a mistake, just that one person learns from it.” He shares a fascinating anecdote about a certain class he taught to 200 students enrolled at Stanford. He was able to offer the same course online to interested members of the general public. Over 1000 people signed up for the online class. When he tested them, he found that the best Stanford student ranked 412th among all the students combined. From this he said he learned that for every one great Stanford student, there are 412 better out there in the world who couldn’t or didn’t go to Stanford.

Then, we are presented with some particularly dark sides of the internet. The family of Nikki Catsouras shares their story, explaining why they no longer use email or the internet. Nikki died in a car accident in 2006 when she was 18 years old. Gruesome photos of her decapitated body were posted online shortly after the accident. Then, the family began receiving anonymous emails containing the photos, one with the caption “Woohoo Daddy! Hey daddy, I’m still alive.” The Catsouras family deeply lamented the lack of accountability on the internet.

What would today’s landscape be like without the internet? We find out more about that by visiting Green Bank, West Virginia, home of a telescope 100 meters in diameter that picks up radio waves from outer space. To eliminate interference with the radioastronomy project, all wireless transmissions are disabled within a 10 mile radius. The area has become a haven for people who experience severe physical reactions to being in the presence of radio waves. Diane Schou and Jennifer Wood describe their lives before they moved to Green Bank. They spent all their time inside Faraday cages –  boxes named for the 19th century scientist Michael Faraday, designed to shield their contents from electromagnetic fields. Some regard their condition as a supersense. They regard it as a nightmare.

We visit an internet addiction treatment center near Seattle, Washington where we hear the personal stories of some clients. We learn about a South Korean couple who were imprisoned for allowing their newborn daughter to starve to death while they were consumed with playing a video game. Ironically, it was a game in which they were nurturing an electronic baby.

Adler Planetarium astronomer Lucianne Walkowicz tells us about large solar flares called Carrington Events, which have the power to disable communications and create widespread power outages, and how we could see the next powerful solar event soon. We are given a glimpse of what that might look like from footage of a recent, relatively small-scale blackout in New York City. Theoretical physicist and cosmologist Lawrence Krauss warns “if the internet shuts down, people will not remember how they lived before that.”

Famous hacker Kevin Mitnick is interviewed about the methods he employed to gain access to secured information. He goes into detail about how he manipulated weaknesses in cybersecurity systems, noting that he always found them in the people, not the systems.

In the final third of the documentary, the possible future of Artificial Intelligence is explored. Entrepreneur Elon Musk, who made a fortune through PayPal, talks about the rockets he is launching into space, and his goals of creating a colony on Mars in case Earth becomes unlivable.

Marcel Just and Tom Mitchell, brain scientists at Carnegie Mellon postulate on whether or not it is possible for computers to dream.

The Wikipedia Emergency Project is described. It is a plan that people should print out hard copies of the information found on its website and store them somewhere our heirs can find them should a catastrophic planetary event occur.

The documentary prompted much thought, and left me with so many questions the first time around, I eagerly watched it a second time a couple of weeks later, after I gave myself some time to let the ideas rattle around in my mind for a while. If you like to explore multiple sides of issues relating to the past, present, and future of technology I would recommend you watch Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World.