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An untidy history of AI across four books

https://hedgehogreview.com/issues/lessons-of-babel/articles/perplexity
38•ewf•2h ago

Comments

jstanley•1h ago
The four books discussed in that passage are:

AI Snake Oil – by Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor

Nexus – by Yuval Noah Harari

Genesis – by Henry Kissinger, Craig Mundie, and Eric Schmidt

The Singularity Is Nearer – by Ray Kurzweil

ks2048•1h ago
Henry Kissinger, noted AI expert.
homarp•1h ago
well craig mundie and eric schmidt not much better
KerrAvon•1h ago
it's not complimentary about them, FWIW
DebtDeflation•50m ago
In 20 years, Kurzweil will write another book entitled, "The Singularity is Almost Here".
FungalRaincloud•30m ago
He's 77 years old. Let the man retire, damn.
kelseyfrog•15m ago
Pills in; books out. That's the deal.
rishi_rt•1h ago
Aravind Narayanan seems to be the only guy qualified enough to be called an expert.
dang•26m ago
HN's own https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=randomwalker!
eco•14m ago
That's one of the things that drives me nuts about all the public discourse about AI and our future. The vast majority of words written/spoken on the subject are by generic "thought leaders" who really have no greater understanding of AI than anyone else who uses it regularly.
libraryofbabel•6m ago
And the article agrees with you, and is pretty scathing about all the books except Narayanan’s (which is also the only book with a balanced anti-hype perspective):

> A puzzling characteristic of many AI prophets is their unfamiliarity with the technology itself

> After reading these books, I began to question whether “hype” is a sufficient term for describing an uncoordinated yet global campaign of obfuscation and manipulation advanced by many Silicon Valley leaders, researchers, and journalists

kouru225•1h ago
Ok so what is this publication? Because apparently they’ve been around since the 90s. I’ve never heard of them though. Their title and its reference suggests a very strong philosophical stance about something and I imagine that because of that they have political leanings, but I can’t tell what their leanings are
FungalRaincloud•31m ago
The Hedgehog Review? Yes, they've been around since 1999, and publish a few times a year. But I'm not sure where you're leaping to a strong political leaning. They're an academic journal published by the University of Virginia. I don't religiously follow them, but I've been cursorily aware of them for a while. I don't think I've ever considered them to lean one way or another when reading their publications.
PeterStuer•57m ago
Read "brainmakers", even though it completely ignores Europe's and the East's significant contributions to AI history https://www.newquistbooks.com/brainmakers/brainmakers.html
RyanShook•9m ago
Just finished reading The Thinking Machine. Highly recommend it if you're interested in how Nvidia became the most valuable company on earth: https://amzn.to/42z8JPF

An untidy history of AI across four books

https://hedgehogreview.com/issues/lessons-of-babel/articles/perplexity
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