A brightly readable overview of how AI is poised to change human society—and perhaps humans themselves.
An exploration of the evolving relationships between humans and machines.
“We seldom think about how much we depend on our tools to extend the capabilities of our bodies,” technology consultant Meisel writes in his nonfiction debut. “A full view of evolution should include the tools we use constantly.” He proceeds to look at human evolution in just that way, drawing on his professional background in computer science to explore the history, nature, and possible future of artificial intelligence, which he expects to “get increasingly powerful and attack an increasing range of applications.” Meisel is an unapologetic champion of AI and marshals a wide array of cited facts and sources (each chapter ends with a reference list) to counter some of the most common objections to the greater ubiquity of high-power “smart” computing in all aspects of life. These include anxieties over the possibility of AI taking jobs from human beings; he argues that such technology would, in fact, create new jobs for people. Different chapters cover different aspects of AI, from increasing sophistication in speech recognition to advancements in “digital assistants,” now in millions of American homes, to the possibility of designing AI to mimic the deep neural networks of the human brain. Throughout, Meisel also insists on the intimate relationship between AI–infused tools and biology: “We make decisions based not only on our bodies, but on the availability of tools to help make a decision and tools to execute that decision,” he writes. “Tools extend the capability of our bodies including our brains.”
Meisel writes with the kind of knowledgeable conviction that can change minds. A persistent problem, though, is the book’s apparent misunderstanding of evolution by means of natural selection: “Humankind has always extended the ability of the human body and brain with tools,” he writes, for instance, which is true in the sociological sense but not the evolutionary sense; whatever changes that have happened to human bodies and brains over the last two centuries have likely been the result of improved nutrition and health care, not evolution. However, he compensates for this with the fierce energy with which he examines many aspects of the smart-technology world. He’s consistently engaging, for instance, when he writes about the role of tech in controlling objectionable speech in online forums: “Who decides what is ethical?” he asks. “Should we leave it in the hands of social media companies, or should it be set by governments or by industry consortiums?” Meisel’s upbeat attitude toward the future is intriguing even if some readers may consider it fairly dystopian. He believes in the enormous potential of his subject, writing that “the right tasks for AI is to do things that help humans with tasks, not emulate them.” Whether such optimism is merited is up for debate—if machines do eventually affect human evolution, it seems equally likely that they could impair human intelligence over the course of 10 generations—but it’s undeniably energizing. A brightly readable overview of how AI is poised to change human society—and perhaps humans themselves.Pub Date: April 13, 2022
ISBN: 979-8985794229
Page Count: 212
Publisher: Mindstir Media
Review Posted Online: July 5, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A revelatory meditation on shattering journeys.
Bearing witness to oppression.
Award-winning journalist and MacArthur Fellow Coates probes the narratives that shape our perception of the world through his reports on three journeys: to Dakar, Senegal, the last stop for Black Africans “before the genocide and rebirth of the Middle Passage”; to Chapin, South Carolina, where controversy erupted over a writing teacher’s use of Between the World and Me in class; and to Israel and Palestine, where he spent 10 days in a “Holy Land of barbed wire, settlers, and outrageous guns.” By addressing the essays to students in his writing workshop at Howard University in 2022, Coates makes a literary choice similar to the letter to his son that informed Between the World and Me; as in that book, the choice creates a sense of intimacy between writer and reader. Interweaving autobiography and reportage, Coates examines race, his identity as a Black American, and his role as a public intellectual. In Dakar, he is haunted by ghosts of his ancestors and “the shade of Niggerology,” a pseudoscientific narrative put forth to justify enslavement by portraying Blacks as inferior. In South Carolina, the 22-acre State House grounds, dotted with Confederate statues, continue to impart a narrative of white supremacy. His trip to the Middle East inspires the longest and most impassioned essay: “I don’t think I ever, in my life, felt the glare of racism burn stranger and more intense than in Israel,” he writes. In his complex analysis, he sees the trauma of the Holocaust playing a role in Israel’s tactics in the Middle East: “The wars against the Palestinians and their Arab allies were a kind of theater in which ‘weak Jews’ who went ‘like lambs to slaughter’ were supplanted by Israelis who would ‘fight back.’” Roiled by what he witnessed, Coates feels speechless, unable to adequately convey Palestinians’ agony; their reality “demands new messengers, tasked as we all are, with nothing less than saving the world.”
A revelatory meditation on shattering journeys.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9780593230381
Page Count: 176
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
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