Mainly for computer-savvy readers.
A heady exploration of the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and human nature.
Each year, the Loebner Prize competition tests the continuing evolution of AI. Based on the Turing Test, named for British computer pioneer Alan Turing, the contest pits AI programs against people in an electronic conversation designed to determine whether computers can “think.” While no machine has ever fooled the judges into thinking it was human, the event recognizes both the “most human” computer and the “most human” human. Intrigued by the latter expression, Christian decided to investigate its meaning. He participated in the 2009 Loebner competition and interviewed philosophers, computer scientists and others to write this debut book about the ways in which computers are reshaping our sense of self. The author begins by asking a few questions: What are humans’ abilities? What are we good at? What makes us special? Since Aristotle, writes the author, the answer has been that only humans can reason. Yet the computer’s earliest achievement fell into the domain of logical analysis. So where does that leave humans? Since the 1997 AI showdown in which supercomputer Deep Blue won a chess match against world champion Garry Kasparov, humans have felt “an uneasy and shifting relationship” between AI and our sense of self. Christian’s occasionally rambling examination of the way machines are forcing us to appreciate what it means to be human leads him to explore everything from poetry, chess and existentialism to the state of “flow,” in which we become completely immersed in unself-conscious activity. Along the way, the author offers an overview of the history of AI, including the development at MIT of the first conversational computer programs in the mid ’60s and the inner workings of chess computers, which store huge amounts of data on possible chess positions. With AI chat bots now finding commercial uses—an airline website invited the author to chat with “Jinn” instead of calling their customer-service line—we more frequently encounter AI in daily life. “Maybe it’s not until we experience machines that we appreciate the human,” writes Christian.
Mainly for computer-savvy readers.Pub Date: March 8, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-385-53306-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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