In the past twenty years, AI has transformed from a niche field with questionable reputation to the most speculated-about pursuit in contemporary culture. But how much of our perception of AI as self-aware, conscious and autonomous beings is a pipe dream cooked up by the charlatans and snake-oil salesmen of science?
In The Road to Conscious Machines, Michael Wooldridge tells the story of AI, from its origins in the first Turing computers to DeepMind and newer innovations that will shape the next few decades. Mythbyusting AI’s capabilities as logical, rational, intelligent, independent actors, Wooldridge makes a convincing case that most AI engineers are – like everyone — just figuring things out as they go along.
In this deft and detailed survey of AI’s booms and busts, Wooldridge brings a healthy injection of humility to an overhyped field. AI appeals to fundamental questions about what it means to be human; so too do the failures and limitations of its past.