Books, books, books! Before I started my journey in machine learning, I stacked up a pile of books on Artificial Intelligence from my local Waterstones books store. The idea was to gather up as much knowledge as I can about the potential of AI and whether I thought it was something I could do.
Three years down the line, I’ve successfully made the transition from post-man to Machine Learning Engineer, and now I’m circling back on some of the books that inspired me in the early stages of my journey.
Here are some great Books you can pick up to learn about Artificial Intelligence.
The Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the Ulitmate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World
Author: Pedro Domingos
For those scared of the rise of decision-making machines, Pedro Domingos makes it pretty clear that machines have been deeply involved with our lives for quite some time. In all fairness, there’s some truth to it. Our lives are run by algorithms that are learning more things about us as it consumes the data we put out. Some good examples are YouTube, Netflix, and Google. In totality, the book covers the quest for one master algorithm which would transform machine learning and our lives.
How To Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed
Author: Ray Kurzweil
Sentiments to whether a computer could ever match human intelligence may slowly be changing. Computers have surpassed humans in a number of tasks – playing Jeopardy and Chess is a good example. Elon Musk’s comments about AI surpassing the human race by 2025 further boost the arguments. Ray Kurzweil was one of the early believers that AI could surpass human intelligence, merely based on the idea that mimicking the underlying principles and neuro-networks that are responsible for high order thinking is relatively simple. This book shares his insights.
Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies
Author: Nick Bostrom
The superintelligent computer is usually depicted as a machine on a mission to take over the world. The idea has been around for years but as we enter into the artificial intelligence age, many questions are being asked. Nick Bostrom attempts to answer the question "what will happen once we manage to build computers smarter than us?". He shares his Ideas on what actions we may need to take, how it will work, and reasons why it has to be done the correct way to preserve the human race.
Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
Author: Max Tegmark
The book begins with a story of a fictitious team (Omega) and how they were able to take over the world using Prometheus – a superintelligent AI that could learn and design anything. At first, you’d think the book will follow in the same light as many of the traditional movies on AI but Max Tegmark does a good job to steer its direction. He emphasizes on the granularity of AI and how quickly its happening. Tegmark believes AI is likely to transform the future of mankind, thus it’s vital that humanity understands both sides of the coin (pros and cons), and take part in defining the future we want – if you aim at nothing, you’ll most definitely miss.
Artificial Intelligence: 101 Things You Must Know Today About Our Future
Author: Lasse Rouhiainen
Of all the books on this list, this is the only book I’m yet to read. I saw it had a good rating on Goodreads and thought I’d pick it up. From what I’m gathering about the book, it covers how artificial intelligence is improving and changing our lives. Some chapters include: How Artificial Intelligence is Changing Many Industries, How Artificial Intelligence is Changing the Job Market as we know it, and Robots & How they will change our Life.
Final Thoughts
Many books exist to help you learn artificial intelligence. In each book, different authors have their inclinations about the effect of artificial intelligence on the future. My personal advice would be to read as many books that detail both sides of the argument and draw your own conclusions from there.
Thanks for Reading!
If you enjoyed this article, connect with me by subscribing ** to my FRE**E weekly newsletter. Never miss a post I make about Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, and Freelancing.
Related Articles
5 Free Books To Take Your Data Science Skills to The Next Level