McPherson conveys the thrill of the possibility inherent in AI, but she’s frequently a giant step ahead of the game.
McPherson presents the evolution of artificial intelligence—machines with the “humanlike ability to reason and solve problems.”
That definition opens McPherson’s tour d’horizon of artificial intelligence, immediately placing readers on shaky ground. Philosophers have been debating “to reason” since long before Descartes. There is little doubt that McPherson richly explores the women and men who develop machines to do the drudge work of mechanical production and everyday life, but do either the amusingly crafty Watson, which took down the Jeopardy! game show champs, or Deep Blue, which humiliated Garry Kasparov, qualify as “a truly thinking machine, able to learn on its own and modify its own programming without human input”? The ability for a machine to reckon if/then is part of its programming. Sentience, which includes feeling, is stickier. How is it possible, as McPherson writes, that a machine programmed by humans “might not share human social and ethical values—such as notions of fairness, justice, and right and wrong”? Throughout, there’s too much supposition and not enough science; emblematic of this is a failure to convey exactly how Google Brain arrived at the concept of a cat without being commanded to: “All on its own, it had developed the concept of ‘cat.’ ”
McPherson conveys the thrill of the possibility inherent in AI, but she’s frequently a giant step ahead of the game. (Nonfiction. 13-18)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5124-1826-2
Page Count: 104
Publisher: Twenty-First Century/Lerner
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
Nothing new or revelatory here, but the book can serve as a good introduction to Jobs and will impress with its concision...
A free-wheeling graphic biography of Steve Jobs.
The late visionary behind Apple and Pixar lent himself to caricature, and illustrator Hartland (Bon Appétit: The Delicious Life of Julia Child, 2012, etc.) takes full advantage. Her inspirational version of the “insanely great” Jobs is a misfit who refused to follow the rules or play well with others, who was as rebellious as he was smart. Eventually becoming one of the richest men in the world, he followed a spiritual path of asceticism, looking for gurus, seeking a purer truth than can be found in material possessions. Yet he showed a remarkable lack of compassion and empathy toward his associates and was forced out of the Apple he had founded because others considered him so difficult. He wasn’t the computer whiz that his early collaborator Steve Wozniak was, but the marketing acumen of his passion for design and simplicity proved equally crucial in Apple’s transformation of the personal computer from a hobbyist pursuit into a paradigm-shifting commercial product. “Woz is the engineering genius,” the author writes in a kid’s scrawl that matches the rough-hewn illustrations. “Steve is the salesman with the big picture.” As she later quotes her subject, who saw Apple prosper beyond anyone’s wildest expectations, “I don’t think it would have happened without Woz and I don’t think it would have happened without me.” Recognizing his own deficiencies, Jobs recruited Pepsi’s John Sculley to run the company: “While Steve knows himself to be quirky, tactless, confrontational, and insensitive, he knows Sculley is polite, polished, and easygoing”—though inevitably, there was a power struggle between the two. The narrative somehow squeezes Jobs’ important innovations—the iMac, the music empire of iPods and iTunes, the smartphone revolution, the iPad—into a breezy narrative that engages and entertains.
Nothing new or revelatory here, but the book can serve as a good introduction to Jobs and will impress with its concision those who already know a lot about him.Pub Date: July 21, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-307-98295-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A vanity project that's for fans only.
A popular YouTuber releases her memoir.
Jenn McAllister, better known as Jennxpenn, details her ascent to Internet stardom and her personal struggles with bullying and anxiety. The book flips between prose chapters and lists, such as "Top 10 Things Middle Schoolers Worry About That They Shouldn't" and "Top 10 Best Pieces of Advice I've Ever Received." Unfortunately neither really pops. The lists are serviceable distractions filled with boilerplate platitudes (“Know It’s Not About You”; “Nobody’s in Charge of Your Happiness Except You”). McAllister's recounting of her own life starts interestingly enough (although her "bullying" is pretty tame, mostly name-calling that most children endure) but quickly loses narrative urgency or comedic charm. The book is filled with pictures as well, but there aren't any captions, so those who aren't familiar with YouTube culture won't know whom these people are or what the point of the picture's placement is. This lack of context feeds into the book's largest problem: anyone not familiar with Jennxpenn and her cohorts is left completely behind. The author describes her burgeoning channel competently enough early on, but once she makes it big, the narrative devolves into a listing of accomplishments and experiences that don't lead into one another in any way or provide much meaning to those curious about YouTubers but not particularly familiar with them.
A vanity project that's for fans only. (Memoir. 13-17)Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-545-86112-0
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2015
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