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We’re two months into the new year and you’re probably looking at a new collection of books to add to your reading list. Your library is already filled with self-development books, but how many books about AI have you read?

Learning about the world of AI in the current state as well as the future state is important to anybody's learning in this day and age. It’s better to know the world you’re living in than to be bewildered when AI systems and other tools have been implemented without knowing the real reasons and outcomes behind it. 

In this article, I will go through 5 highly recommended books to learn more about AI in the year 2024. 

Life 3.0

Link: Life 3.0

Author: Max Tegmark 

Author Max Tegmark is a physicist and a machine learning researcher who dives into the 3 different tiers of life since the universe, from the simple form of biology species that can’t change their software, to species who can change their software design, to technological species that can design both its software and hardware. 

Learn what category you fit in: the techno-skeptics who believe AGI will not effectively be implemented for another 100 years or the beneficial AI movement camp that believes human AGI is possible in this century. 

Superintelligence

Link: Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies

Author: Nick Bostrom

Author Nick Bostrom offers us this classic where he elaborates on the distance between a village idiot and Einstein is very small due to the intelligence of AI possibly surpassing both scales of human intelligence. 

Understand the cross-over points where AI systems can become smarter alone, and delve into the author's opinion on superintelligence being able to move fast and explosively. Two forms of designing superintelligence machines are mentioned in this book: the current way of teaching computers to imitate human intelligence and whole-brain simulation where the computer simulates the human brain. 

The Coming Wave

Link: The Coming Wave

Author: Mustafa Suleyman

Mustafa Suleyman, the co-founder of DeepMind comes with one of the most recent books about AI and mentions recent breakthroughs, such as robots and large language models. The book is divided up into 4 parts: Homo Technologicus, The Next Wave, State of Failure, and Through the Wave. These different chapters talk about the acceleration and movement of technology in human history, where each of these movements come and go like waves and are continuously being improved. 

Dive into different aspects and incentives that push the progress of technology such as finances, politics, human ego, human curiosity, change the world and who ends up winning the race. 

Power and Progress

Link: Power and Progress

Author: Simon Johnson and Daron Acemoglu

Dive into a book that examines the relationship between technology, prosperity, and societal progress. The majority of society believes or has been fed that technological advancements lead to societal progress. In this book, the authors challenge this statement by emphasizing that technological advancements can cause inequality, where only a small group of individuals and corporations benefit. 

We can stand by this statement as we have seen in the past few years, some companies have become millionaires overnight, whilst the lower-income families have seen a further decline in income and also an increase in layoffs. 

Are humans underrated? Should we let humans continue to do what they’re good at due to human intelligence and let machines continue to do what they’re good at?

Human Compatible

Link: Human Compatible

Author: Stuart Russell

Author Stuart Russell, the co-author of the 3rd textbook about Artificial Intelligence. Although the title sounds a bit serious, the book is a fun read and dives into how the design of intelligent machines is important to solving human problems, whilst ensuring that they do not cause humans harm. 

The first section dives into AI in general, and why it is important to build superintelligent machines that are compatible with human goals. He states in the book “Success would be the biggest event in human history, and perhaps the last event in human history”. 

Wrapping it up

If you haven’t already, I would highly recommend you add this to your reading list. You do not have to be an AI or tech professional to want to learn more about the world we live in with technological advancements - you’re just doing the right preparation and learning for it. 

If there are any other books you would recommend to the community, please drop them in the comments section below - thank you!
 
 

Nisha Arya is a data scientist, freelance technical writer, and an editor and community manager for KDnuggets. She is particularly interested in providing data science career advice or tutorials and theory-based knowledge around data science. Nisha covers a wide range of topics and wishes to explore the different ways artificial intelligence can benefit the longevity of human life. A keen learner, Nisha seeks to broaden her tech knowledge and writing skills, while helping guide others.