Making Sense of AI

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Author :
Publisher : Polity
ISBN 13 : 9781509548903
Total Pages : 220 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (489 download)

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Book Synopsis Making Sense of AI by : Anthony Elliott

Download or read book Making Sense of AI written by Anthony Elliott and published by Polity. This book was released on 2021-12-01 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Industrial robots, self-driving cars, customer-service chatbots and Google’s algorithmic predictions have brought the topic of artificial intelligence into public debate. Why is AI the source of such intense controversy and what are its economic, political, social and cultural consequences? Tracing the changing fortunes of artificial intelligence, Elliott develops a systematic account of how automated intelligent machines impact different spheres and aspects of public and private life. Among the issues discussed are the automation of workforces, surveillance capitalism, warfare and lethal autonomous weapons, the spread of racist robots and the automation of social inequalities. Elliott also considers the decisive role of AI in confronting global risks and social futures, including global pandemics such as COVID-19, and how smart algorithms are impacting the search for energy security and combating climate change. Making Sense of AI provides a judiciously comprehensive account of artificial intelligence for those with little or no previous knowledge of the topic. It will be an invaluable book both for students in the social sciences and humanities and for general readers.

Making Sense of AI

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Author :
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 1509548912
Total Pages : 220 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (95 download)

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Book Synopsis Making Sense of AI by : Anthony Elliott

Download or read book Making Sense of AI written by Anthony Elliott and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2021-09-23 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Industrial robots, self-driving cars, customer-service chatbots and Google’s algorithmic predictions have brought the topic of artificial intelligence into public debate. Why is AI the source of such intense controversy and what are its economic, political, social and cultural consequences? Tracing the changing fortunes of artificial intelligence, Elliott develops a systematic account of how automated intelligent machines impact different spheres and aspects of public and private life. Among the issues discussed are the automation of workforces, surveillance capitalism, warfare and lethal autonomous weapons, the spread of racist robots and the automation of social inequalities. Elliott also considers the decisive role of AI in confronting global risks and social futures, including global pandemics such as COVID-19, and how smart algorithms are impacting the search for energy security and combating climate change. Making Sense of AI provides a judiciously comprehensive account of artificial intelligence for those with little or no previous knowledge of the topic. It will be an invaluable book both for students in the social sciences and humanities and for general readers.

Artificially Human

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Author :
Publisher : Better Future Publishing
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (883 download)

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Book Synopsis Artificially Human by : Robert Whiteman

Download or read book Artificially Human written by Robert Whiteman and published by Better Future Publishing. This book was released on 2023-06-09 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Artificially Human" is your guide to making sense of automation and artificial intelligence (AI). The book provides eight mental models to unscramble the flurry of technological breakthroughs and hyperbolic headlines. If you're feeling left behind, you're not alone.Rob Whiteman launched an automation service line at McKinsey & Company in 2016, growing it to more than 150 practitioners in a few years. This book is based on his experiences advising more than 200 institutions, including multinational corporations, technology startups, and government agencies.Rob proposes that the world of automation and AI make more sense if you place machines, rather than humans, at the center. He shares stories that help you understand how mechanical minds work, where we see them reshaping society, and what we can do to secure a better future. You can't outrun AI, but this book may help you outrun other humans.The book's three-part structure takes you from the conceptual to the practical. It begins with a retelling of history through the eyes of machines. It then illustrates how automation is reshaping institutions and individuals. Finally, it describes how you can take the mental models from the book and apply them in your life. We all worry about how automation and AI will impact our family, friends, and the institutions to which we belong. Regardless of where you find yourself today, it is not too late to catch up. None of us can predict the future, but wouldn't it be nice if the present were a little less confusing?

Common Sense, the Turing Test, and the Quest for Real AI

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Author :
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262535203
Total Pages : 190 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (625 download)

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Book Synopsis Common Sense, the Turing Test, and the Quest for Real AI by : Hector J. Levesque

Download or read book Common Sense, the Turing Test, and the Quest for Real AI written by Hector J. Levesque and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2018-03-09 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What artificial intelligence can tell us about the mind and intelligent behavior. What can artificial intelligence teach us about the mind? If AI's underlying concept is that thinking is a computational process, then how can computation illuminate thinking? It's a timely question. AI is all the rage, and the buzziest AI buzz surrounds adaptive machine learning: computer systems that learn intelligent behavior from massive amounts of data. This is what powers a driverless car, for example. In this book, Hector Levesque shifts the conversation to “good old fashioned artificial intelligence,” which is based not on heaps of data but on understanding commonsense intelligence. This kind of artificial intelligence is equipped to handle situations that depart from previous patterns—as we do in real life, when, for example, we encounter a washed-out bridge or when the barista informs us there's no more soy milk. Levesque considers the role of language in learning. He argues that a computer program that passes the famous Turing Test could be a mindless zombie, and he proposes another way to test for intelligence—the Winograd Schema Test, developed by Levesque and his colleagues. “If our goal is to understand intelligent behavior, we had better understand the difference between making it and faking it,” he observes. He identifies a possible mechanism behind common sense and the capacity to call on background knowledge: the ability to represent objects of thought symbolically. As AI migrates more and more into everyday life, we should worry if systems without common sense are making decisions where common sense is needed.

Possible Minds

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Author :
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0525558012
Total Pages : 321 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (255 download)

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Book Synopsis Possible Minds by : John Brockman

Download or read book Possible Minds written by John Brockman and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-02-18 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Science world luminary John Brockman assembles twenty-five of the most important scientific minds, people who have been thinking about the field artificial intelligence for most of their careers, for an unparalleled round-table examination about mind, thinking, intelligence and what it means to be human. "Artificial intelligence is today's story--the story behind all other stories. It is the Second Coming and the Apocalypse at the same time: Good AI versus evil AI." --John Brockman More than sixty years ago, mathematician-philosopher Norbert Wiener published a book on the place of machines in society that ended with a warning: "we shall never receive the right answers to our questions unless we ask the right questions.... The hour is very late, and the choice of good and evil knocks at our door." In the wake of advances in unsupervised, self-improving machine learning, a small but influential community of thinkers is considering Wiener's words again. In Possible Minds, John Brockman gathers their disparate visions of where AI might be taking us. The fruit of the long history of Brockman's profound engagement with the most important scientific minds who have been thinking about AI--from Alison Gopnik and David Deutsch to Frank Wilczek and Stephen Wolfram--Possible Minds is an ideal introduction to the landscape of crucial issues AI presents. The collision between opposing perspectives is salutary and exhilarating; some of these figures, such as computer scientist Stuart Russell, Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn, and physicist Max Tegmark, are deeply concerned with the threat of AI, including the existential one, while others, notably robotics entrepreneur Rodney Brooks, philosopher Daniel Dennett, and bestselling author Steven Pinker, have a very different view. Serious, searching and authoritative, Possible Minds lays out the intellectual landscape of one of the most important topics of our time.

The AI-Powered Enterprise

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Author :
Publisher : LifeTree Media
ISBN 13 : 1928055524
Total Pages : 203 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (28 download)

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Book Synopsis The AI-Powered Enterprise by : Seth Earley

Download or read book The AI-Powered Enterprise written by Seth Earley and published by LifeTree Media. This book was released on 2020-04-28 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Learn how to develop and employ an ontology, the secret weapon for successfully using artificial intelligence to create a powerful competitive advantage in your business. The AI-Powered Enterprise examines two fundamental questions: First, how will the future be different as a result of artificial intelligence? And second, what must companies do to stake their claim on that future? When the Web came along in the mid-90s, it transformed the behavior of customers and remade whole industries. Now, as part of its promise to bring revolutionary change in untold ways to human activity, artificial intelligence—AI—is about to create another complete transformation in how companies create and deliver value to customers. But despite the billions spent so far on bots and other tools, AI continues to stumble. Why can't it magically use all the data organizations generate to make them run faster and better? Because something is missing. AI works only when it understands the soul of the business. An ontology is a holistic digital model of every piece of information that matters to the business, from processes to products to people, and it's what makes the difference between the promise of AI and delivering on that promise. Business leaders who want to catch the AI wave—rather than be crushed by it—need to read The AI-Powered Enterprise. The book is the first to combine a sophisticated explanation of how AI works with a practical approach to applying AI to the problems of business, from customer experience to business operations to product development.

Machines like Us

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Author :
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262547325
Total Pages : 319 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (625 download)

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Book Synopsis Machines like Us by : Ronald J. Brachman

Download or read book Machines like Us written by Ronald J. Brachman and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2023-10-17 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How we can create artificial intelligence with broad, robust common sense rather than narrow, specialized expertise. It’s sometime in the not-so-distant future, and you send your fully autonomous self-driving car to the store to pick up your grocery order. The car is endowed with as much capability as an artificial intelligence agent can have, programmed to drive better than you do. But when the car encounters a traffic light stuck on red, it just sits there—indefinitely. Its obstacle-avoidance, lane-following, and route-calculation capacities are all irrelevant; it fails to act because it lacks the common sense of a human driver, who would quickly figure out what’s happening and find a workaround. In Machines like Us, Ron Brachman and Hector Levesque—both leading experts in AI—consider what it would take to create machines with common sense rather than just the specialized expertise of today’s AI systems. Using the stuck traffic light and other relatable examples, Brachman and Levesque offer an accessible account of how common sense might be built into a machine. They analyze common sense in humans, explain how AI over the years has focused mainly on expertise, and suggest ways to endow an AI system with both common sense and effective reasoning. Finally, they consider the critical issue of how we can trust an autonomous machine to make decisions, identifying two fundamental requirements for trustworthy autonomous AI systems: having reasons for doing what they do, and being able to accept advice. Both in the end are dependent on having common sense.

On Intelligence

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Publisher : Macmillan
ISBN 13 : 1429900458
Total Pages : 276 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (299 download)

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Book Synopsis On Intelligence by : Jeff Hawkins

Download or read book On Intelligence written by Jeff Hawkins and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2007-04-01 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the inventor of the PalmPilot comes a new and compelling theory of intelligence, brain function, and the future of intelligent machines Jeff Hawkins, the man who created the PalmPilot, Treo smart phone, and other handheld devices, has reshaped our relationship to computers. Now he stands ready to revolutionize both neuroscience and computing in one stroke, with a new understanding of intelligence itself. Hawkins develops a powerful theory of how the human brain works, explaining why computers are not intelligent and how, based on this new theory, we can finally build intelligent machines. The brain is not a computer, but a memory system that stores experiences in a way that reflects the true structure of the world, remembering sequences of events and their nested relationships and making predictions based on those memories. It is this memory-prediction system that forms the basis of intelligence, perception, creativity, and even consciousness. In an engaging style that will captivate audiences from the merely curious to the professional scientist, Hawkins shows how a clear understanding of how the brain works will make it possible for us to build intelligent machines, in silicon, that will exceed our human ability in surprising ways. Written with acclaimed science writer Sandra Blakeslee, On Intelligence promises to completely transfigure the possibilities of the technology age. It is a landmark book in its scope and clarity.

Making Sense

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Author :
Publisher : Mit Press
ISBN 13 : 9780262036757
Total Pages : 544 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (367 download)

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Book Synopsis Making Sense by : Simon Penny

Download or read book Making Sense written by Simon Penny and published by Mit Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why embodied approaches to cognition are better able to address the performative dimensions of art than the dualistic conceptions fundamental to theories of digital computing. In Making Sense, Simon Penny proposes that internalist conceptions of cognition have minimal purchase on embodied cognitive practices. Much of the cognition involved in arts practices remains invisible under such a paradigm. Penny argues that the mind-body dualism of Western humanist philosophy is inadequate for addressing performative practices. Ideas of cognition as embodied and embedded provide a basis for the development of new ways of speaking about the embodied and situated intelligences of the arts. Penny argues this perspective is particularly relevant to media arts practices. Penny takes a radically interdisciplinary approach, drawing on philosophy, biology, psychology, cognitive science, neuroscience, cybernetics, artificial intelligence, critical theory, and other fields. He argues that computationalist cognitive rhetoric, with its assumption of mind-body (and software-hardware) dualism, cannot account for the quintessentially performative qualities of arts practices. He reviews post-cognitivist paradigms including situated, distributed, embodied, and enactive, and relates these to discussions of arts and cultural practices in general. Penny emphasizes the way real time computing facilitates new modalities of dynamical, generative and interactive arts practices. He proposes that conventional aesthetics (of the plastic arts) cannot address these new forms and argues for a new "performative aesthetics." Viewing these practices from embodied, enactive, and situated perspectives allows us to recognize the embodied and performative qualities of the "intelligences of the arts."

Making Sense

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Author :
Publisher : HarperCollins
ISBN 13 : 0062857800
Total Pages : 435 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (628 download)

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Book Synopsis Making Sense by : Sam Harris

Download or read book Making Sense written by Sam Harris and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2020-08-11 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times New and Noteworthy Book From the bestselling author of Waking Up and The End of Faith, an adaptation of his wildly popular, often controversial podcast “Sam Harris is the most intellectually courageous man I know, unafraid to speak truths out in the open where others keep those very same thoughts buried, fearful of the modish thought police. With his literate intelligence and fluency with words, he brings out the best in his guests, including those with whom he disagrees.” -- Richard Dawkins, author of The Selfish Gene “Civilization rests on a series of successful conversations.” —Sam Harris Sam Harris—neuroscientist, philosopher, and bestselling author—has been exploring some of the most important questions about the human mind, society, and current events on his podcast, Making Sense. With over one million downloads per episode, these discussions have clearly hit a nerve, frequently walking a tightrope where either host or guest—and sometimes both—lose their footing, but always in search of a greater understanding of the world in which we live. For Harris, honest conversation, no matter how difficult or controversial, represents the only path to moral and intellectual progress. This book includes a dozen of the best conversations from Making Sense, including talks with Daniel Kahneman, Timothy Snyder, Nick Bostrom, and Glenn Loury, on topics that range from the nature of consciousness and free will, to politics and extremism, to living ethically. Together they shine a light on what it means to “make sense” in the modern world.

Making AI Intelligible

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Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0192894722
Total Pages : 184 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (928 download)

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Book Synopsis Making AI Intelligible by : Herman Cappelen

Download or read book Making AI Intelligible written by Herman Cappelen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can humans and artificial intelligences share concepts and communicate? One aim of Making AI Intelligible is to show that philosophical work on the metaphysics of meaning can help answer these questions. Cappelen and Dever use the externalist tradition in philosophy of to create models of how AIs and humans can understand each other. In doing so, they also show ways in which that philosophical tradition can be improved: our linguistic encounters with AIs revel that our theories of meaning have been excessively anthropocentric. The questions addressed in the book are not only theoretically interesting, but the answers have pressing practical implications. Many important decisions about human life are now influenced by AI. In giving that power to AI, we presuppose that AIs can track features of the world that we care about (e.g. creditworthiness, recidivism, cancer, and combatants.) If AIs can share our concepts, that will go some way towards justifying this reliance on AI. The book can be read as a proposal for how to take some first steps towards achieving interpretable AI. Making AI Intelligible is of interest to both philosophers of language and anyone who follows current events or interacts with AI systems. It illustrates how philosophy can help us understand and improve our interactions with AI.

AI and You

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Author :
Publisher : Independently Published
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (535 download)

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Book Synopsis AI and You by : John A Robinson

Download or read book AI and You written by John A Robinson and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2023-07-25 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: AI and You: Making Sense of Artificial Intelligence A user-friendly guide that empowers everyday individuals to understand and harness the potential of AI in their lives. Covering topics from demystifying AI concepts to practical applications in areas like productivity, entertainment, health, finance, and more, the book bridges the gap between complex technology and its real-world benefits. It also addresses ethical considerations and concludes by emphasizing the diverse ways AI can enhance the lives of ordinary people.

The Myth of Artificial Intelligence

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Author :
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674983513
Total Pages : 321 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (749 download)

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Book Synopsis The Myth of Artificial Intelligence by : Erik J. Larson

Download or read book The Myth of Artificial Intelligence written by Erik J. Larson and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-06 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Artificial intelligence has always inspired outlandish visions—that AI is going to destroy us, save us, or at the very least radically transform us. Erik Larson exposes the vast gap between the actual science underlying AI and the dramatic claims being made for it. This is a timely, important, and even essential book.” —John Horgan, author of The End of Science Many futurists insist that AI will soon achieve human levels of intelligence. From there, it will quickly eclipse the most gifted human mind. The Myth of Artificial Intelligence argues that such claims are just that: myths. We are not on the path to developing truly intelligent machines. We don’t even know where that path might be. Erik Larson charts a journey through the landscape of AI, from Alan Turing’s early work to today’s dominant models of machine learning. Since the beginning, AI researchers and enthusiasts have equated the reasoning approaches of AI with those of human intelligence. But this is a profound mistake. Even cutting-edge AI looks nothing like human intelligence. Modern AI is based on inductive reasoning: computers make statistical correlations to determine which answer is likely to be right, allowing software to, say, detect a particular face in an image. But human reasoning is entirely different. Humans do not correlate data sets; we make conjectures sensitive to context—the best guess, given our observations and what we already know about the world. We haven’t a clue how to program this kind of reasoning, known as abduction. Yet it is the heart of common sense. Larson argues that all this AI hype is bad science and bad for science. A culture of invention thrives on exploring unknowns, not overselling existing methods. Inductive AI will continue to improve at narrow tasks, but if we are to make real progress, we must abandon futuristic talk and learn to better appreciate the only true intelligence we know—our own.

Rebooting AI

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Author :
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 1524748269
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (247 download)

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Book Synopsis Rebooting AI by : Gary Marcus

Download or read book Rebooting AI written by Gary Marcus and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2019-09-10 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two leaders in the field offer a compelling analysis of the current state of the art and reveal the steps we must take to achieve a truly robust artificial intelligence. Despite the hype surrounding AI, creating an intelligence that rivals or exceeds human levels is far more complicated than we have been led to believe. Professors Gary Marcus and Ernest Davis have spent their careers at the forefront of AI research and have witnessed some of the greatest milestones in the field, but they argue that a computer beating a human in Jeopardy! does not signal that we are on the doorstep of fully autonomous cars or superintelligent machines. The achievements in the field thus far have occurred in closed systems with fixed sets of rules, and these approaches are too narrow to achieve genuine intelligence. The real world, in contrast, is wildly complex and open-ended. How can we bridge this gap? What will the consequences be when we do? Taking inspiration from the human mind, Marcus and Davis explain what we need to advance AI to the next level, and suggest that if we are wise along the way, we won't need to worry about a future of machine overlords. If we focus on endowing machines with common sense and deep understanding, rather than simply focusing on statistical analysis and gatherine ever larger collections of data, we will be able to create an AI we can trust—in our homes, our cars, and our doctors' offices. Rebooting AI provides a lucid, clear-eyed assessment of the current science and offers an inspiring vision of how a new generation of AI can make our lives better.

Human-Centered AI

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Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0192845292
Total Pages : 390 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (928 download)

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Book Synopsis Human-Centered AI by : Ben Shneiderman

Download or read book Human-Centered AI written by Ben Shneiderman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The remarkable progress in algorithms for machine and deep learning have opened the doors to new opportunities, and some dark possibilities. However, a bright future awaits those who build on their working methods by including HCAI strategies of design and testing. As many technology companies and thought leaders have argued, the goal is not to replace people, but to empower them by making design choices that give humans control over technology. In Human-Centered AI, Professor Ben Shneiderman offers an optimistic realist's guide to how artificial intelligence can be used to augment and enhance humans' lives. This project bridges the gap between ethical considerations and practical realities to offer a road map for successful, reliable systems. Digital cameras, communications services, and navigation apps are just the beginning. Shneiderman shows how future applications will support health and wellness, improve education, accelerate business, and connect people in reliable, safe, and trustworthy ways that respect human values, rights, justice, and dignity.

Human Compatible

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Author :
Publisher : Penguin Books
ISBN 13 : 0525558616
Total Pages : 354 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (255 download)

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Book Synopsis Human Compatible by : Stuart Jonathan Russell

Download or read book Human Compatible written by Stuart Jonathan Russell and published by Penguin Books. This book was released on 2019 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A leading artificial intelligence researcher lays out a new approach to AI that will enable people to coexist successfully with increasingly intelligent machines.

The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values

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Author :
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 039363583X
Total Pages : 459 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (936 download)

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Book Synopsis The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values by : Brian Christian

Download or read book The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values written by Brian Christian and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 459 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A jaw-dropping exploration of everything that goes wrong when we build AI systems and the movement to fix them. Today’s “machine-learning” systems, trained by data, are so effective that we’ve invited them to see and hear for us—and to make decisions on our behalf. But alarm bells are ringing. Recent years have seen an eruption of concern as the field of machine learning advances. When the systems we attempt to teach will not, in the end, do what we want or what we expect, ethical and potentially existential risks emerge. Researchers call this the alignment problem. Systems cull résumés until, years later, we discover that they have inherent gender biases. Algorithms decide bail and parole—and appear to assess Black and White defendants differently. We can no longer assume that our mortgage application, or even our medical tests, will be seen by human eyes. And as autonomous vehicles share our streets, we are increasingly putting our lives in their hands. The mathematical and computational models driving these changes range in complexity from something that can fit on a spreadsheet to a complex system that might credibly be called “artificial intelligence.” They are steadily replacing both human judgment and explicitly programmed software. In best-selling author Brian Christian’s riveting account, we meet the alignment problem’s “first-responders,” and learn their ambitious plan to solve it before our hands are completely off the wheel. In a masterful blend of history and on-the ground reporting, Christian traces the explosive growth in the field of machine learning and surveys its current, sprawling frontier. Readers encounter a discipline finding its legs amid exhilarating and sometimes terrifying progress. Whether they—and we—succeed or fail in solving the alignment problem will be a defining human story. The Alignment Problem offers an unflinching reckoning with humanity’s biases and blind spots, our own unstated assumptions and often contradictory goals. A dazzlingly interdisciplinary work, it takes a hard look not only at our technology but at our culture—and finds a story by turns harrowing and hopeful.