Artificial Intelligence: What Everyone Needs to KnowR

This is a useful overview of the current state of artificial intelligence. The author has clearly been swimming in these waters during his academic studies and professional career. I came away with the sense that his thoughts and observations were based on close personal experience and careful analysis. If the area interests you, I think that you'll find that Dr. Kaplan is an experienced guide.What are some of the major areas that the book examines? He examines the definition of artificial intelligence, considers its intellectual history and explores the frontiers of robotics, computer vision and speech recognition. As he looks at the philosophy of AI, he explains his position on whether computers can think, have free will, possess consciousness, and have feelings. He doesn't think they do and deems it unlikely that they will.The author also examines the effect of AI on law, human labor (basically jobs) and social equity. These issues currently affect much of our political discourse. Since I think that much of our society fails to appreciate the economic and social effects of technology, the book addresses matters that, in my opinion, need more of society's attention. The book looks at the possible future impact of AI. The author believes that the future impact of AI will likely mirror that of other technological advances; in other words, that with time AI will be viewed as simply another tool to be employed for good or ill.You should be aware that the book takes time examining philosophical issues such as can intelligence be defined or accurately measured (probably not in the author's view), what are free will and consciousness (difficult to define in humans and probably impossible to define in machines) and feelings (whether computers will ever have feelings is mostly a matter of a human's personal choice). Will artificially intelligent machines ever rule over us (probably not, but no one's 100% sure)? This reminded me of another book published by Oxford on Complexity which described emergent conditions such as one or a number of water molecules do not possess the condition that we call "wetness," but a lot of water molecules in one place are commonly described as "wet". Maybe if we get enough of these machines connected and operated under a range of algorithms, then humans may discover that, as a large number of water molecules are "wet," a large interconnection of computers suitably programmed may start to look "intelligent," whatever we may mean by that.Dr. Kaplan provides a broad and useful overview of artificial intelligence. If the topic interests you, I recommend it.

Kaplan moves easily from weak and strong AI, automation to robotics, humans to autonomous beings. At first....I thought this was utter nonsense, but as I read on, I realized there is an element of genius to this approach---being, that's how AI is now...and will be in the future. AI isn't new, and is already quite pervasive in our society. My only real complaint, is that moving so casually between levels of AI, it seemed cavalier and confusing at times. I guess the reader is to assume that strong AI is possible...or that digital brains in humans is possible. There are bits of sci-fi he used in the storytelling that undermined his personal ideology, which is...we are nowhere close to strong AI (I also believe this). Nonetheless, it was a good read. I would recommend this book to other people.

This is a quick and informative read. First, what is AI (it's essentially automation), what are the techniques and how is it advancing ? I got a little bored with the discussion of Free Will and whether AI can exhibit, and not just simulate, human traits, but at least it was brief. More interesting and even quite scary was the prediction of how AI will in the next 20 years or so replace many human workers, possibly 40% or even as many as 70% as I interpret the text. The author offers some ideas about how to handle the economic disruption, but the situation looks pretty grim to me. Good to know about it, though. Finally, I am a little less worried about the Singularity (Skynet / Terminator). These AI are appliances and nowhere near human level -- yet.

The book is OK. It has interesting parts, is easy to read and gives a general overview that will be of interest to many.However, in my view, it is too simplistic, at least for those who already have a basic understanding of AI. As many, many books on AI it hardly scratches the surface, and gives little understanding of the inner workings and real cases applicability.I admit I may be asking too much from this book, but I was expecting more depth. Also, in the last chapters, the author goes off the tangent and starts treating topics that can hardly be considered AI.

A common sense approach to explaining AI and Machine Learning to people who know nothing, or something, about the subject.

> Available > 10.03.2016 > Author & Expert, etc. Jerry Kaplan ( >Twitter @Jerry_Kaplan) > "ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE : What Everyone Needs To Know" > 8+ Chapters, 165+ Pages > CONTENTS > Preface, Acknowledgments > Chapter One > Defining Artificial Intelligence > Chapter Two > The Intellectual History of Artificial Intelligence > Chapter Three > Frontiers of Artificial Intelligence > Chapter Four > Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence > Chapter Five > Artificial Intelligence and the Law > Chapter Six > The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Human Labor > Chapter Seven > The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Social Equity > Chapter Eight > Possible Future Impacts of Artificial Intelligence > INDEX > Acquired Michael GreenGold...08.24.2017 >>> Michael GreenGold REVIEWER >>> Excellent Starter & Introduction From Author & Expert, etc. Jerry Kaplan To Help Lead YOU & I Into The Very Expansive & Complex, etc. Subject of ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE...Reviewer, Owner, etc. > Michael GreenGold...

Cuts through the hype and helps the reader glean some useful knowledge about the topic. The author frames the "why" very well, which helps understand how AI is being used today, and where it might go next.The book is pretty jargon-free, so the concepts should be quite accessible for most readers.

Well written and very interesting reading. I would recommend it highly.