In this list, I tried to collect the top 10 most important and popular books
around AI, Machine Learning and Robotics. I spent the last
year reading each one of them and I totally recommend all of them (Ok maybe some
more than others). This collection is a nice break from all the technical stuff
so don’t expect to find technical books filled with math and algorithms.
Instead there are only nonfiction books which analyze Artificial Intelligence
from a philosophical or a business point of view. In my opinion every Machine
Learning Engineer, Programmer with an interest in Machine Learning ,
Professional who wants to apply AI into his business should read at least two of
them. Don’t be surprised if I tell you that every person on the planet should read one of them.
Artificial Intelligence is slowly proven itself as the major force of all future
technological advancements and is expected to play a significant role in shaping
our every-day lives more than most of us imagine.
Let’s begin:
After publishing the best-seller Sapiens, which describes the evolution of
mankind through the ages from apes to super-intelligent beings, Yuav Noah Harari
(a historian, philosopher, and a professor in the Department of History at the
University of Jerusalem) continues his search into the future.
In his book Homo Deus, he argues that humanity will increase his efforts to
achieve total happiness, immortality and God-like powers and that may result
into various possible futures. Will humans lose control to machines? Will the
man be worshiped as God? But the man idea throughout the book is that it will
end in uncoupling our intelligence from emotions. Harari dives deep into
philosophical issues such as consciousness, human emotions, individualism so if
you’d like a little philosophical questioning and thinking, make sure you read
this book.
Ray Kurzweil is an inventor and futurists who has written 5 best-sellers so far
and is partially responsible for popularizing the term Technological Singularity
through his book “The Singularity is Near”. The book focuses on a more technical
aspect of AI rather than a philosophical point of view and analyzes the
sociological impacts of intelligent robots in human life. It also introduces the
possibility to merging with machines and live as a cybernetic being, like a
cyborg(to make a Battlestar Galactica referenc, sorry I couldn’t help myself).
As Bill Gates put it: ‘Ray Kurzweil is the best person I know at predicting the
future of artificial intelligence. His intriguing new book envisions a future in
which information technologies have advanced so far and fast that they enable
humanity to transcend its biological limitations – transforming our lives in
ways we can’t yet imagine.’
Superintelligence by prof. Nick Bostrom is the book on Artificial Intelligence
safety. Bostrom imagines how we can create an Artificial Intelligence far
superior than we could even think and what risks does it entail. He thinks of
examples of how things can go wrong and if superintelligence can replace us as
the dominant lifeform on Earth.
One thing that stood out to me was the parallelization of humans with gorillas.
If the fate of gorillas depends more on humans than themselves, could this mean
that the fate of humans will depend more on AI than on our species? Another
great philosophical book on AI which raises more questions than it answers (and
that how it should be)
Life 3.0 by cosmologist and MIT professor Max Tegmark. Life 1.0 comes from
biologocial evolution, life 2.0 from cultural evolution and Life 3.0 from
technological evolution. It describes once again how things could go wrong. But
it does so by using tangible examples with real-life elements and it proposes
specific actions to prevent them.
Hear this: a company called Omega took over the world using a super-intelligent
AI agent, called Prometheus who was able to develop breakthrough systems, manage
global resources optimally and even create other machines. All of that were
achieved without anyone realizing AI was behind it. That’s how the book starts.
Does this sound plausible to you? It sure does to me.
Kai-Fu Lee ( who developed the world’s first speaker-independent speech
recognition system and held executives positions in Google, Apple and Microsoft)
argues that dramatic changes due to AI may happen much sooner than we expect and
explores the impact China will have in future. According to him : “If data is
the new oil, then China is the new Saudi Arabia”. Maybe the future is not
western after all.
He focuses on the problem of global unemployment as a result of AI and he
provides a clear description of which jobs will be affected, how soon and how we
can provide solutions. The best thing about his book is that it won’t go into
vague apocalyptic predictions but it forms educated guesses based on real-world
data and his experience in the field.
Analytics of Life by Mert Damlapinar is an amazing book for businessmen,
managers, marketers and entrepreneurs who want an introduction in Artificial
Intelligence and advanced Data Analytics. It starts by an explanation of what is
Machine Learning and Big Data and then it covers real examples of applications
on healthcare, marketing, governments and nature, explains what jobs will be
replaced and how companies and startups can apply AI to solve their use cases.
To summarize the main idea: AI can and will transform almost every industry. A
must if you are a professional, who wants to dive into the world of Machine
Learning
If you want the best high-level overview of Machine Learning, look no further
than The Master Algorithm by Pedro Domingos. Domingos manages to organize the
entire field of ML in one book and covers everything from the history of the
field to latest breakthroughs.
It creates a conceptual model of the field by categorizing algorithms into 5
different school of thoughts. Each school has its own perspective of what the
best generalized algorithm is. Then he goes into more details about its school
and its algorithms and finally, he suggests that the ultimate master algorithm
is the combination of all these and that we gradually drive towards that goal.
How to Create a mind is the second book in our list by Ray Kurzweil. This time
he takes the exploration into AI a step further. What’s the best way to create
an artificial brain? The answer is to reverse engineer our own biological brain,
understand precisely how it works and then apply this accumulated knowledge to
create intelligent machines.
Inspired by the latest neuroscience research he describes how our brain is
nothing more than “a self-organizing hierarchical system of pattern recognizers”
and those insights will enable us to reconstruct it using silicon and
programming.
In this book James Barrat (a documentary filmmaker for National Geographic,
Discovery, PBS and more) characterized Artificial Intelligence as humanity’s
final invention. It clearly exposes the risks that may arise from General
Artificial Intelligence, it indicates that superintelligence does not
necessarily imply benevolence and it summarizes the last years of research on
potential AI threads. And it does so thought extensive research and detailed
interviews with people in the field.
Our final Invention might have a slightly pessimistic tone and it might leave
you with a sense of hopelessness but that’s why it’s a great book. It forces you
to think about our future, to try to find new ways to prevent all that from
happening. Social awareness at its best.
Accenture leaders Paul R. Daugherty and H. James Wilson use their experience to
reveal how companies use AI to drive innovation and increase profitability and
how AI clearly transforms all business processes from customer service and new
inventions to productivity and workplace culture. I like to describe it as a
playbook for other business leaders to understand the positive impact AI will
have on their companies but also the need for education and training to prevent
the disruption caused.
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