Apr 01, 2025
Just read this NY article on artificial intelligence (https://www.newyorker.com/culture/open-questions/are-we-taking-ai-seriously-enough) and am curious if anyone here has any good (and recent) books on AI they'd recommend. I'm interested in anything from how it's impacting work, relationships (chatbot lovers), energy consumption...anything, so long as it's compelling and well-written. How fucked are we lit salon?
I can’t think of recommendations, but I do think you should AVOID the AI existentialism books like the Nick Bostrom book Superintelligence. I think they are pedantic and extrapolating a future no one can really predict or imagine in a very boring way. It reminds me of like how people imagined the future in the 50s or alike.
I read that book shortly after it was first published several years ago. I agree; it feels extremely hyperbolic. Thinkers like him only contribute to the general noise of the conversation. Same goes for guys like Ray Kurzweil, etc. A friend of mine who is an AI consultant for a Big Four accounting firm recommended me Eliezer Yudkowsky and this guy (https://thezvi.substack.com/p/openai-12-battle-of-the-board-redux?r=gkrdx&utm_medium=ios&triedRedirect=true), who is a former professional Magic the Gathering player who is now a financial trader and AI blogger. My friend's take on this whole conversation is (predictably) that AI will massively contribute to cybercrime and fraud (faking receipts, etc).
Not a book, but I can't recommend Ed Zitron's blog enough for a sobering look at the AI sphere without the rose-tinted lenses of credulity and speculation you'll get in not-savvy mainstream outlets and from the various money-horse's mouths. I'd probably start with https://www.wheresyoured.at/longcon/. A little vitriolic and ranty, but maybe the best state-of-the-game I can think of.
Thanks for the rec. His tone is kind of reassuring amidst the grandiose statements of the industry and the general armchair philosophizing that seems to dominate the conversation.
Haven’t read it but I’ve been recommended Blood in the Machine by Brian Merchant. I like his LA Times pieces on the subject.