A fascinating and meticulous consideration of one of the central issues of our time.
Powell and Kleiner reflect on the moral dilemmas posed by the rise of artificial intelligence in this nonfiction work.
The authors (of AI advisory firm Kleiner Powell International) observe that the recent proliferation of popular apps driven by artificial intelligence (AI), like ChatGPT, have provoked urgent debate about the moral ramifications of new AI technology. They assert that these issues will only become more important and complex as more people take up residence in a “data-centric world,” and that they require systematic frameworks to understand and resolve them. Powell and Kleiner focus on what they call “Triple-A” systems, which are “algorithmic, autonomous, and automated,” and, as “sociotechnical” systems, “depend just as much on human and social elements as on the technology.” To understand these systems, the authors convincingly argue for the integration of four very different and often conflicting perspectives: that of the engineer, who tends to focus on customer satisfaction and solutions to highly technical problems; that of the social justice activist, concerned with morally satisfying all stakeholders, especially the disenfranchised; that of the corporate leader, narrowly interested in the accumulation of profit; and that of the governmental leader, driven by the satisfaction of national interests (as well as partisan political gain). Powell and Kleiner take the reader on an edifying tour of seven key principles, including risk, transparency, and the protection of personal data rights. They combine scientific rigor with philosophic depth to probe the issue at the heart of the AI debate: the human impact of a technology increasingly liberated from human superintendence. “The core of the AI dilemma is not the ability of machines to learn. It is the ability of humans to learn to manage the growing abilities of these new systems. To gain real control, instead of illusory control, we need to raise our own awareness and ability first.” For the reader in search of a single-volume introduction to these vexing issues, one could do no better.
A fascinating and meticulous consideration of one of the central issues of our time.Pub Date: Aug. 15, 2023
ISBN: 978-1523004195
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Review Posted Online: Aug. 14, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.
Helping liberals get out of their own way.
Klein, a New York Times columnist, and Thompson, an Atlantic staffer, lean to the left, but they aren’t interrogating the usual suspects. Aware that many conservatives have no interest in their opinions, the authors target their own side’s “pathologies.” Why do red states greenlight the kind of renewable energy projects that often languish in blue states? Why does liberal California have the nation’s most severe homelessness and housing affordability crises? One big reason: Liberal leadership has ensnared itself in a web of well-intentioned yet often onerous “goals, standards, and rules.” This “procedural kludge,” partially shaped by lawyers who pioneered a “democracy by lawsuit” strategy in the 1960s, threatens to stymie key breakthroughs. Consider the anti-pollution laws passed after World War II. In the decades since, homeowners’ groups in liberal locales have cited such statutes in lawsuits meant to stop new affordable housing. Today, these laws “block the clean energy projects” required to tackle climate change. Nuclear energy is “inarguably safer” than the fossil fuel variety, but because Washington doesn’t always “properly weigh risk,” it almost never builds new reactors. Meanwhile, technologies that may cure disease or slash the carbon footprint of cement production benefit from government support, but too often the grant process “rewards caution and punishes outsider thinking.” The authors call this style of governing “everything-bagel liberalism,” so named because of its many government mandates. Instead, they envision “a politics of abundance” that would remake travel, work, and health. This won’t happen without “changing the processes that make building and inventing so hard.” It’s time, then, to scrutinize everything from municipal zoning regulations to the paperwork requirements for scientists getting federal funding. The authors’ debut as a duo is very smart and eminently useful.
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781668023488
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.
A warts-and-all portrait of the famed techno-entrepreneur—and the warts are nearly beyond counting.
To call Elon Musk (b. 1971) “mercurial” is to undervalue the term; to call him a genius is incorrect. Instead, Musk has a gift for leveraging the genius of others in order to make things work. When they don’t, writes eminent biographer Isaacson, it’s because the notoriously headstrong Musk is so sure of himself that he charges ahead against the advice of others: “He does not like to share power.” In this sharp-edged biography, the author likens Musk to an earlier biographical subject, Steve Jobs. Given Musk’s recent political turn, born of the me-first libertarianism of the very rich, however, Henry Ford also comes to mind. What emerges clearly is that Musk, who may or may not have Asperger’s syndrome (“Empathy did not come naturally”), has nurtured several obsessions for years, apart from a passion for the letter X as both a brand and personal name. He firmly believes that “all requirements should be treated as recommendations”; that it is his destiny to make humankind a multi-planetary civilization through innovations in space travel; that government is generally an impediment and that “the thought police are gaining power”; and that “a maniacal sense of urgency” should guide his businesses. That need for speed has led to undeniable successes in beating schedules and competitors, but it has also wrought disaster: One of the most telling anecdotes in the book concerns Musk’s “demon mode” order to relocate thousands of Twitter servers from Sacramento to Portland at breakneck speed, which trashed big parts of the system for months. To judge by Isaacson’s account, that may have been by design, for Musk’s idea of creative destruction seems to mean mostly chaos.
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781982181284
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
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