THE AGE OF AIAnd Our Human FutureBy Henry A. Kissinger, Eric Schmidt and Daniel Huttenlocher
One of the great promises of technology is that it can do the work that humans find too boring or arduous.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, factory machines relieved us of repetitive manual labor and backbreaking farm work. In this century, artificial intelligence has taken care of a few more tasks — curating Spotify playlists, selecting the next YouTube video, vacuuming the floor and so on — but many more mind-numbing activities remain ripe for the picking. The experts promise us that someday, all of our least favorite chores — including complex cognitive ones, like interviewing job candidates or managing global supply chains — will be outsourced to machines.
But that day has not yet arrived. Or has it?
After finishing “The Age of AI,” a new book about artificial intelligence by Henry A. Kissinger, Eric Schmidt and Daniel Huttenlocher, I found myself unmoved by the prospect of reviewing it. I’ve read dozens of books about A.I., and while the conceit of this one was intriguing — bringing together a 98-year-old diplomat, a former Google chief executive and an M.I.T. professor — the book itself was a fairly forgettable entry in the genre.
Then I got a bright idea. What if I could have an A.I. finish this review, and save myself the trouble?
