The Age of AI: "THE BOOK WE ALL NEED" Paperback – 4 Aug. 2022

Published in 2022, it has obviously been overtaken by many rapid developments in AI but in most areas it is still very relevant, thought-provoking and timely, especially given its writers’ abilities to see the wider picture.A few of the chapter headings provide an insight into their level of thought - national, international and existential:Chapter 3: From Turing to Today - and BeyondChapter 4: Global Network PlatformsChapter 5: Security and World OrderChapter 6: AI and Human IdentityMy edition: paperback, John Murray, 2022, ISBN 978-1-529-37999-2Recommended

This book delves into the impact of artificial intelligence on society, politics, and human identity. One of the things that attracted me to this book was to see that Henry Kissinger was one of the authors, which intrigued me. Sadly as I was finishing the book it coincided with the announcement that he had passed away at the ripe old age of 100. I enjoyed the read and would give it a 4-star rating. The authors, experts in policy, technology, and academia, explore AI's transformative potential, emphasising its profound implications for our future. They pose and explore a lot of good questions to make you stop and think about the big picture future potential and possible ramifications of AI. There are so many unanswered questions and issues that we as a society need to face in to. They discuss how AI challenges our understanding of human consciousness and ethics, urging a thoughtful approach to integrating AI into our world. The book highlights what is needed to navigate this new era, addressing AI’s influence on international affairs, human cognition, and the very fabric of society.For those of us in the security field, this book offers valuable insights into the broader implications of AI, including its ethical dimensions and potential influence on cybersecurity landscapes. Understanding these aspects could enhance our approach to protecting your organisations in an increasingly AI-integrated world.Worth a read for sure, but if you’re considering AI books, the one I’ve just started looks like it may be a better bet, entitled “The Coming Wave” by Mustafa Sulleyman. I’ll provide a summary of that once I’ve read it.

Some sections of the book were excellent, those for example on the history of information and control in society from ancient times through the ages to modernity as well as the section on the potential use and threats of AI in security and defence.The grounding on AI and how it works was pitched at a decent level, not too detailed for a wide audience and very good examples were given of recent big accomplishments in gaming (chess), medicine (antibiotics as well as gene folding) and finance.There were several inconsistencies through the book that were surprising. For example as far as AGI is concerned the authors felt that it would be so challenging that only a few organisations could resource this; yet many of the examples provided as to what AI will help societies achieve would depend on AGI. Quite rightly the authors also pointed out that as of today AI is mostly a black box where it is not possible to determine how the system came to a certain result. The inconsistencies were then examples given of outcomes where the path to the result would be known. The authors were clear in defining that current state of the art is not intelligence or reasoning as we have classically understood it but then proceeded to credit outcomes very widely as intelligence. There was very little to no discussion on the nature of intelligence itself.However for me the biggest failure in the book, and I am certain it was deliberate given who the authors are was the lack of any discussion on how AI would concentrate power in a small number of commercial organisations and the negative consequences of this concentration on accountability, profiteering and agenda setting. All discussions on current use of, for example, AI in social media were 100% focused on benefits (e.g. I can see products and services I might be interested in) and 0% on the downside (loss of privacy, concentration of power and the negative impact on tax revenues that are a basis for providing some common services to society). There was no discussion on how concentration of power at the platform level, which it was stated was necessary due to resources needed would negatively affect the customers of these services and I am referring to the corporate customer here rather than the consumer. There was very little discussion on the consequences and dangers to society when an AI system provides an incorrect answer, which it will from time to time.AI offers us hope in many areas (climate science and medicine for example) but we need to be careful not to sleep walk into giving away too much power to unelected corporations or delegating justice to a black box. This book is a good contribution to the subject with, in my opinion, shortcomings, that were understood by the authors but they were silent on them.

AI is well up the hype-scale at the moment and this book will explain a lot about why that is. Kissinger and Schmidt have sufficient experience that we should take note of their views. Being authored by a policy strategist and technology manager, together with an academic, gives the first indication of the potential readership. Politicians and policy strategists will find this enlightening and essential reading about opportunities and threats: there are numerous pointers throughout as to what “should” be done, but it will be up to governments and standards setting bodies to decide what is actually done. Equally, technologists will benefit from a wider view of what the technology can do. In addition, sociologists, psychologists, ethicists and philosophers will find plenty to think about in their fields. It is written in an accessible style requiring neither expertise in AI nor on policy and therefore is of general interest as well. It is a book that informs and makes you think, whatever your interest or viewpoint. You do not have to agree with everything: debate will improve responses. In the UK the government’s National AI Strategy (NAIS) is at best a work-in-progress with more hype and less insight than this book. No doubt other countries will also have similar problems grappling with some of the implications. That is somewhat disappointing given that this software-driven digital capability has been evolving for well over 20 years as the progression of broadband and processing power has enabled spectacular results.