The Sentient Machine: The Coming Age of Artificial Intelligence

by Amir Husain

In the tradition of Michio Kaku’s The Future of the Mind, acclaimed technologist and inventor Amir Husain answers the universal question of how we can live amidst the coming age of sentient machines and artificial intelligence—and not only survive, but thrive.

The future is now. Artificial “machine” intelligence is playing an ever-greater role in our society. We are already using cruise control in our cars, automatic checkout at the drugstore, and are unable to live without our smartphones. The discussion around AI is largely polarized; people think either machines will solve all problems for everyone, or they will lead us down a dark, dystopian path into total human irrelevance. Regardless of what you believe, the idea that we might bring forth intelligent creation can be intrinsically frightening. But what if our greatest role as humans so far is that of creators?

Amir Husain, a brilliant inventor and computer scientist argues that we are on the cusp of writing our next, and greatest, creation myth. It is the dawn of a new form of intellectual diversity, one that we need to embrace in order to advance the state of the art in many critical fields, including security, resource management, finance, and energy. In The Sentient Machine, he addresses broad existential questions surrounding the coming of AI: Why are we valuable? What can we create in this world? How are we intelligent? What constitutes progress for us? And how might we fail to progress? Husain boils down complex computer science and AI concepts into clear, plainspoken language and draws from a wide variety of cultural and historical references to illustrate his points. Ultimately, he challenges many of our societal norms and upends assumptions we hold about “the good life.”

• ISBN10: 1501144693
• ISBN13: 9781501144691
• Publish Date: 21 November 2017
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Ltd
• Imprint: Scribner
• Format: eBook (EPUB)
• Pages: 224
• Language: English

Reviews

[Jeff Sexton]

Great Overview Of Pervasive AI. This book is a love story to coding and its arguably most advanced manifestation - artificial intelligence. Husain spends quite a bit of time explaining what, exactly, AI is and its history, where we currently are, and where we will be in the near future. He then spends considerable time looking at various areas where AI research is already being done and where it is already having an impact. His praise of the idiot John Maynard Keynes is a bit too effusive, and is indicative of how wrong Husain's thinking can be when he leaves the programmatic space. While this is but one concrete example, there are numerous others too that are the basis of the drop of a star. Among these are his praise for National Security Agency spying as well as domestic police spying on every day citizens, disregard of Constitutional freedom protections, labeling anything he disagrees with as a "myth", and a few others. Still, quite a remarkable book when it sticks to its central thesis, and highly recommended.