In Our Own Image: Savior or Destroyer? The History and Future of Artificial Intelligence

by George Zarkadakis

Overview

A timely and important book that explores the history and future, as well as the societal and ethical implications, of Artificial Intelligence as we approach the cusp of a fourth industrial revolution

Zarkadakis explores one of humankind's oldest love-hate relationships—our ties with artificial intelligence, or AI. He traces AI's origins in ancient myth, through literary classics like Frankenstein, to today's sci-fi blockbusters, arguing that a fascination with AI is hardwired into the human psyche. He explains AI's history, technology, and potential; its manifestations in intelligent machines; its connections to neurology and consciousness, as well as—perhaps most tellingly—what AI reveals about us as human beings.

In Our Own Image argues that we are on the brink of a fourth industrial revolution—poised to enter the age of Artificial Intelligence as science fiction becomes science fact. Ultimately, Zarkadakis observes, the fate of AI has profound implications for the future of science and humanity itself.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781681773537
Publisher:	Pegasus Books
Publication date:	04/11/2017
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.70(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

George Zarkadakis has a PhD in Artificial Intelligence. He has worked for various companies and organizations, including Accenture and Silicon Graphics, and is currently a digital transformation consultant and web entrepreneur. Awarded a knighthood by the French government for his international work in science communication, Zarkadakis writes for several international publications including the Daily Telegraph, the Huffington Post and Aeon magazine. He lives in London.

Table of Contents

Introduction vii

Part I Dreaming of Electric Sheep 1

1 The birth of the modern mind 3

2 Life in the Bush of Ghosts 19

3 The mechanical Turk 28

4 Loving the alien 48

5 Prometheus unbound 60

6 The return of the gods 74

Part II The Mind Problem 89

7 A blueprint for a universe 95

8 Minds without bodies 110

9 La Resistance 132

10 Peering into the mind 154

11 The cybernetic brain 172

Part III ADA in Wonderland 193

12 'All Cretans are liars' 195

13 The program 217

14 From Bletchley Park to Google Campus 232

15 Machines that think 254

16 Darwin at the edge of chaos 280

Epilogue: The future of humanity 304

Timeline: A Brief History of Artificial Intelligence 318

Notes 322

Acknowledgements 348

Index 350

Editorial Reviews

"A mindful and historical look at the hope, hype and reality of artificial consciousness."

Stuart Hameroff

"George Zarkadakis knows AI. Unlike a lot of the people writing and thinking about it, he has real cultural breadth, too."

AEON Magazine

"Fascinating and rich. Interweaves sci-fi visions with explorations of the philosophy, technology and deep history of artificial super-intelligence."

The Financial Times

"Is the human race really racing down the road to its own extinction through the engineering of AIs that are smarter than we are? AI expert Zarkadakis explores this and related questions with remarkable ingenuity, clarity and breadth, weaving together a tapestry of material drawn from a range of disciplines—not only computer science but history, philosophy, psychology and neuroscience."

Scientific American Mind

★ 01/25/2016
Greek science writer Zarkadakis, armed with a Ph.D. in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and an eclectic tech industry background, rigorously and richly weaves together narrative threads on technology, philosophy, and literature to provide a fascinating history of AI. While many published studies of the human/machine analytic have tended to focus on one development or invention, specialists will recognize that Zarkadakis has left no cybernetic stone unturned—Charles Babbage, Ada Lovelace, Alan Turing, René Descartes, George Boole, Norbert Weiner, and Jacques de Vaucanson all play significant roles in this history. In doing so, Zarkadakis provides the most comprehensive history of AI for our digital age. With a rare combination of literary know-how and scientific knowledge, he demonstrates a keen ability to convey scientific, philosophical, and technical expertise. Zarkadakis passionately, yet carefully, leads readers chronologically through the development of key concepts in the understanding of mind and intelligence. While the book lacks analysis of AI from non-Western perspectives, particularly Japan’s influence on cybernetic thought, Zarkadakis deftly addresses the West’s obsession with the development of artificial beings. By the conclusion of this highly accessible work, Zarkadakis convincingly posits a future in which “post-humanism will have morphed into trans-humanism,” showing how a romance with AI will present humans with a daunting dilemma. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

★ 2016-01-05
Advances in computers have made artificial intelligence a new hot topic for most observers—but not science writer and futurist Zarkadakis, who maintains that it is an ancient human obsession. Combining enthusiasm, scholarship, and lively prose, the author, who has a doctorate in AI, points out that as soon as Paleolithic man became self-aware and realized that his companions were also thinking individuals, he took for granted that animals, trees, and even inanimate objects possess human attributes. In the first third of the book, Zarkadakis delivers an ingenious history of our fascination with nonhuman entities, such as ancient religious totems, which were regarded as sentient, and Pygmalion, golems, medieval mechanical automata, Frankenstein, robots, and a torrent of movies, including Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927), Forbidden Planet (which the author watched as a child, an event that "changed my life forever"), Star Wars, Blade Runner, The Matrix, and Her. Having described the reality, the author then moves on to theory. Some thinkers and scientists and most laymen believe that the mind is immaterial. If so, "how can we ever hope to construct a material computer with a soul? How can we force mindless electrons inside computer chips to become self-aware?" Zarkadakis inclines to the opposing view that the mind is an emergent property of living tissue. Whatever billions of neurons and their trillions of connections can accomplish will eventually emerge from the right software. He does not conceal his excitement as he recounts the history of computing, research that is recording what happens in brains as they observe, decide, think, and feel, and new approaches to programming and design that are already turning out products that, if not yet intelligent, seem awfully clever. A delightfully lucid combination of the history, philosophy, and science behind thinking machines.

Kirkus Reviews