Machines That Think: The Future of Artificial Intelligence

We hear more about AI with every passing day. There are AI programs that have become masters at trivia, Go, and Scrabble. They can teach themselves skills independent of human involvement. And yes, we fear they’ll evolve into Arnold Schwarzenegger-style Terminators that will one day roam the Earth, mowing us down and ushering in the end of humanity.

But given what Toby Walsh has to say in Machines That Think, we should be okay for a while. Machines That Think discusses the slow progression forward of modern AI, including the possibilities of and hindrances to future development. Covering topics as vast as the technological singularity, self-driving cars, and the chess AI Deep Blue, this book helps separate what’s feasible from what’s totally unreasonable.

In the meantime, it’s fascinating to explore that AI is both more common than you’d think, and, as of this point, farther away from taking over than you might expect.

Machines That Think does quality work exploring the birth of the AI movement and just what we can expect from cutting-edge researchers in the years to come.