How AI Ate the World
A Brief History of Artificial Intelligence – and Its Long Future
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Canbury Press
Published:9th May '24
Should be back in stock very soon
UKTN Technology Book of the Year
'Easily the most comprehensive book on AI I have read so far, covering all the key issues.' Peter Hunt, Business & Tech Correspondent, Evening Standard
How AI Ate the World: A Brief History of Artificial Intelligence – and Its Long Future is your essential guide to how AI went from sci‑fi fantasy to the engine quietly (and not so quietly) reshaping work, art, politics and everyday life.
Blending clear explanation with vivid storytelling and investigative reporting, Chris Stokel‑Walker takes you from the early visions of Alan Turing and the Dartmouth conference, through the AI winters and chip wars, to today’s boom in ChatGPT, OpenAI, Midjourney, large language models (LLMs) and generative AI. Along the way, you’ll see how AI spread from research labs into search engines, social media, finance, healthcare, policing, the creative industries and your phone.
Through real‑world stories – including the viral “Pope in a puffer jacket” deepfake created with Midjourney – the book shows how easy‑to‑use AI tools can delight, disrupt and deceive, and why almost nobody using them has really thought through the consequences.
Inside this book you’ll discover
The origins of artificial intelligence: magic mushrooms and Midjourney, the “fathers of AI”, the first AI chess programs, the birth of OpenAI and the partnership with Microsoft.
How AI winters, Cold War machine translation projects and government cuts nearly killed AI – and how it came roaring back.
The battle for AI chips and the hardware arms race driving today’s machine learning and deep learning boom.
How AI is transforming work: automation, productivity tools, “AI doomer” fears about job losses, and the new role of prompt engineers.
The creative explosion – and backlash – around AI art, AI music and generative image models such as Midjourney.
The dark side of AI: misinformation, disinformation, deepfakes, profit before people and coded bias that can entrench racism, sexism and inequality.
AI’s environmental impact and the huge energy cost of training the latest models.
Perfect for readers who care about…
Artificial intelligence, AI...
Reviews
'An excellent starter for those who want to gain an insight into how AI works and why it's likely to shape our lives.' The Daily Telegraph
'How AI Ate the World prodigiously captures the key issues and concerns around artificial intelligence.' Azeem Azhar, Exponential View
'From ancient China to Victorian England, How AI Ate The World is the story of the characters, moments, technologies, and relationships that populate the rich history of artificial intelligence... How AI Ate The World grapples with what the age of automation means for the people living through it.' Harry Law, University of Cambridge
'A witty, engaging book that takes us through AI's bumpy past to help us understand its present, and future, impacts. I highly recommend it to anyone who is impacted by AI tech – which is to say, everyone on the planet.' Sasha Luccioni, Hugging Face
'A comprehensive and compelling look at the technology that's transforming our world. It's an essential guide, full of surprises, to the technology you need to know.' Matt Navarra, social media expert
'Easily the most comprehensive book on AI I have read so far, covering all the key issues' Peter Hunt, Business & Tech Correspondent, Evening Standard
'Whether you are new to AI or have been following the AI hype for years, Chris Stokel-Walker offers an entertaining balance of history, context and insight that has something for everyone. The story of AI’s evolution is a complex one, but Stokel-Walker tackles it in a clear, direct way that will bring you up to speed while helping you grapple with what it all means — for individuals, the workplace, society and the planet.' Sharon Goldman, VentureBeat
'This book is a wild, brilliant ride through centuries of thinking about and decades of developing machines that can learn. As a crash course in how we got to this current point of thrilling chaos, it will take some beating. Whether or not you agree with Stokel-Walker’s solutions or not, How AI Ate The World is essential reading to understand where we are and how we got here.' Ciaran Martin, former CEO, UK National Cyber Security Centre
'More books have been published about AI in 2024 than ever before — and that’s before you get to the ones written by AI. So it can be hard to figure out which are worth your time. I proffer this by Chris Stokel-Walker as one of the best out there. It is short, gloriously succinct and yet manages to cover all four bases of the history, technology, business and politics of AI in page-turning detail. I can’t think of anything it missed. Do yourself a favour: avoid the second-rate AI books and give this comprehensive one a try. It is the ideal primer for those new to the industry.' UKTN Best Technology Books of the Year
ISBN: 9781914487323
Dimensions: 234mm x 153mm x 25mm
Weight: 380g
320 pages