THE EUREKA MACHINE

How developments in artificial intelligence may continue to transform the world.

A pioneer in the development of artificial intelligence, Socher offers here a deeply informed—and deeply optimistic—account of the myriad ways in which emergent technologies are rapidly accelerating advances in nearly every scientific field, from medicine to economics to astronomy. This is a book that will, no doubt, be of interest to other experts, but no expert knowledge is required to follow its arguments: Socher’s precise explanations of how, for instance, new drug discoveries are being made, or how the building blocks of life are being manipulated to construct new organisms, are wonderfully clear and comprehensible. Also compelling are the author’s predictions about how the forms and functions of AI might soon evolve. In one particularly resonant passage near the end of the book, he speculates on how AI might, in assuming a kind of god-like sentience, grow to take control of its own evolution: “Ultimately, an advanced intelligence might seek complete dominion over its own computational substrate, reshaping the very matter from which its intelligence emerges.” To those who view the ascent of machine powers with skepticism or alarm, Socher will likely seem somewhat zealously narrow in his optimism that the expansion of human knowledge and control through these powers will be more than adequate compensation for the paradoxical loss of agency they also bring. AI will not usurp human creativity, he insists, but ultimately “expand the creative possibility space itself.” Nevertheless, this narrative of coming scientific and social transformations is remarkably astute and straightforward in charting how, exactly, a “new era” is dawning and what its awesome technical dimensions might be.

An insider’s richly detailed yet accessible view of AI’s positive potential.