The past decade has witnessed an explosion of interest in Artificial Intelligence (AI), driven by real breakthroughs in building AI systems that the founders of the field would have hailed as miraculous. But while the progress is real, and is real cause for excitement, it doesn't mean that the Hollywood dream of AI, so familiar from countless movies, TV shows, and books, is within our grasp.
Despite this, the breathless media commentary is still largely fixated on weary dystopian tropes that are automatically reported whenever AI is mentioned (AI will take our jobs, AI will destroy humanity...).
This book aims to reframe the AI narrative. It first aims to explain in simple terms what AI is (and what it is not), and why AI has been so hard to achieve. It then leads us through the story of AI, and its many false leads, dead ends, and disappointments, taking us to the present day and that era of deep learning. It then addresses the headline fears about AI head on, and discusses the social issues that AI is causing right now. The book concludes with a look to the distant future - the dream of conscious machines.