Thinking Machines: The inside story of Artificial Intelligence and our race to build the future

by Luke Dormehl

2016 marks the 60-year anniversary of the phrase ‘Artificial Intelligence’ and in this fascinating book, Luke Dormehl charts the weird and wonderful journey of one of mankind’s greatest projects, the creation of Thinking Machines.

This is a story of how what it means to be human in the face of accelerating machine intelligence. It’s about trying to make computers that are smarter than we are, and what happens when it goes wrong. About what creativity means when all knowledge is data that can be stored on microchips. Or about what happens when machines can learn from their mistakes much faster than humans can. And above all, it’s about the dazzling future around the corner, how our lives might just change forever, and whether you and I aren’t just thinking machines of a sort as well.

• ISBN10: 075355674X
• ISBN13: 9780753556740
• Publish Date: 11 August 2016
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Ebury Publishing
• Imprint: W H Allen
• Format: Paperback (UK Trade)
• Pages: 288
• Language: English

Reviews

[Joséphine]

Actual rating: 4.5 stars

Initial thoughts: Even though the potential of artificial intelligence and its underlying principles usually fascinate me in science fiction, I've shied away from reading technical books about it. See, my grasp of science is considerably basic. For someone like me, Thinking Machines was very accessible. The concepts were broken down such that a laymen could understand them.

I gained a broader overview of the origins and state of AI today in a manner that also challenged and engaged my mind. Naturally, the philosophical musings over whether AI truly is intelligent and what constitutes intelligence to begin with, especially captured my attention.