A provocative, philosophically astute, and technologically savvy analysis.
A consideration of artificial intelligence’s technological and economic potential.
According to entrepreneur, corporate researcher, and debut author Bates, we stand on the precipice of a new technological age—a “fourth industrial revolution” that will carry humankind to “stratospheric heights.” Although investment and progress in AI has been prolific, the author calls “intelligence augmentation”—a combination of machine and human cognition—the next frontier. AI and human intelligence generally express different core aptitudes, Bates asserts; although computers are astonishingly efficient at analyzing and retaining troves of data, people are capable of intuitive discovery and creative spontaneity. Rather than replicating human abilities—which he sees as the current obsession of AI research—his version of intellectual augmentation would be a collaboration between computerized and human capabilities. He contends that this is the safest route for humans, as it results in more human control and offers protection from complete replacement by automation. People would effectively become “superhuman”—completely liberated from the “intellectual housekeeping” of relatively mindless tasks and free to devote themselves to more creative, fulfilling pursuits. The author provides a brief, synoptic history of AI since its “golden era” in the mid-20th century and ably diagnoses an opportunity to make huge strides in the field, thanks to a present superabundance of data, money, and algorithmic competence. He also assesses future, specific applications of AI in manufacturing, health care, and the arts. Bates has an academic and entrepreneurial background in AI, which he effectively expresses in his study’s scholarly rigor and commercial insight. Also, he provides a nuanced, if brief, introduction to the debates regarding the relationship between intelligence, creativity, and intuition. The prose is helpfully straightforward and clear, and those who may be unfamiliar with hyper-technical AI discourse will still find it accessible. That said, Bates does have a tendency to meander; for example, his historical discussions of hybridized creatures in ancient literature and popular culture neither advance nor clarify his main argument. Nevertheless, he makes a convincing, original case that deserves a wide audience.
A provocative, philosophically astute, and technologically savvy analysis.Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 180
Publisher: Neocortex Press
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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