Who's Afraid of Ai?: Fear and Promise in the Age of Thinking Machines, Paperback

A penetrating guide to artificial intelligence: what it is, what it does, and how it will change our lives

At a breathtaking pace, artificial intelligence is getting better and faster at making complex decisions. AI can already identify malignant tumors on CT scans, give legal advice, out-bluff the best poker players in the world, and, with ever-increasing skill, drive our cars.

In Who's Afraid of AI?, award-winning author Thomas Ramge expertly explains how machines are learning to learn, and he questions what today's explosion of AI capability could mean for tomorrow:

• Is it ethical to allow robots--endlessly patient--to replace human caregivers in providing comfort and companionship to the elderly?
• Since AI feeds on big data, can we prevent its misuse by corporations or the government?
• Will AI ever be capable of runaway self-improvement? And if "the singularity" does arrive, with AI's intelligence exponentially outpacing our own, what will become of us when, in many ways, we're obsolete?

Thomas Ramge is the author of more than a dozen nonfiction books, including Reinventing Capitalism in the Age of Big Data, coauthored with Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, and The Global Economy as You've Never Seen It, written with Jan Schwochow. Ramge has been honored with multiple journalism and literary awards, including the Axiom Business Book Award's Gold Medal, the getAbstract International Book Award, strategy+business magazine's Best Business Book of the Year (in Technology and Innovation), the Herbert Quandt Media Prize, and the German Business Book Prize. He lives in Berlin with his wife and son.