The AI Delusion

by Gary Smith

Overview

We live in an incredible period in history. The Computer Revolution may be even more life-changing than the Industrial Revolution. We can do things with computers that could never be done before, and computers can do things for us that could never be done before.

But our love of computers should not cloud our thinking about their limitations.

We are told that computers are smarter than humans and that data mining can identify previously unknown truths, or make discoveries that will revolutionize our lives. Our lives may well be changed, but not necessarily for the better. Computers are very good at discovering patterns, but are useless in judging whether the unearthed patterns are sensible because computers do not think the way humans think.

We fear that super-intelligent machines will decide to protect themselves by enslaving or eliminating humans. But the real danger is not that computers are smarter than us, but that we think computers are smarter than us and, so, trust computers to make important decisions for us.

The AI Delusion explains why we should not be intimidated into thinking that computers are infallible, that data-mining is knowledge discovery, and that black boxes should be trusted.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198824305
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	10/01/2018
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.80(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Gary Smith is the Fletcher Jones Professor of Economics at Pomona College. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from Yale University and was an Assistant Professor there for seven years. He has won two teaching awards and written (or co-authored) more than eighty academic papers and twelve books including Standard Deviations: Flawed Assumptions, Tortured Data, and Other Ways to Lie With Statistics, What the Luck? The Surprising Role of Chance in Our Everyday Lives, and Money Machine: The Surprisingly Simple Power of Value Investing. His research has been featured by Bloomberg Radio Network, CNBC, The Brian Lehrer Show, Forbes, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Motley Fool, Newsweek, and BusinessWeek.

Table of Contents

1. Intelligent or Obedient? 2. Doing Without Thinking3. Symbols Without Context4. Bad Data5. Patterns in Randomness6. If You Torture the Data Long Enough7. The Kitchen Sink8. Old Wine in New Bottles9. Take Two Aspirin10. Beat the Market I11. Beat the Market II12. We're Watching You

Editorial Reviews

"AI is eating the world! Or is it? Read the AI Delusion to find out. Gary Smith provides us with a rich tapestry of stories, studies, and science to elucidate this topic in a fun and accessible fashion. Learning about AI, data, and science has never been more enjoyable!" — Oren Etzioni, CEO of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, and Professor of Computer Science at the University of Washington

"Gary Smith demolishes the hype, the exaggerations, and the unrealistic expectations that have surrounded artificial intelligence and data mining. Combining vivid narratives with insightful analysis, the book is both highly informative and enormously entertaining." — Ernest Davis, Professor of Computer Science, New York University

"You won't need a degree in linear algebra or multivariate calculus to understand The AI Delusion — a no-nonsense look at the limitations of Big Data." — Andrew Sloves, Former Managing Director at JP Morgan

"This refreshing, amusing and frank book dispels many myths about the nature of AI when compared with human intelligence, with a stimulating range of examples." — David Lorimer, Paradigm Explorer

"A remarkable book: deeply thoughtful but highly readable, full of practical examples to illustrate Smith's powerful computational critique of the proliferation of AI, big data, and machine learning in our daily lives. Truly essential reading." — Frank Pasquale, author The Black Box Society

"Professor Gary Smith demonstrates why artificial intelligence doesn't live up to the hype. He uses a wide variety of real-world examples to illustrate the risks of taking humans out of the decision-making process." — Karl J. Meyer, Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

"Big data is increasingly being used to make big decisions, and that's a good thing, as long as we keep aware of how things can go wrong, as Gary Smith explains in this fun new book." — Andrew Gelman, Director of the Applied Statistics Center at Columbia University

"Data professionals and consumers can benefit from Smith's entertaining and accessible demonstration that more computing power and more data do not imply more intelligence. We need to have more confidence in our human intellect. Humans may have common sense and an appreciation of context. Computers uniformly have none." — Eric Engberg, Data Scientist and Software Engineer, Wells Fargo

"Prof Smith delivers a strong defense of the scientific method - theory before data - and clearly demonstrates the limitations of 'AI' and 'Big Data'." — Chris Nelson, CFO Universal Studios Hollywood

"Smith's book goes a long way towards dispelling the BS about AI." — Roger Schank, Professor Emeritus, Northwestern University

"Remarkable ... This book so deserves to be widely read." — Jonathan Cowie, Concatenation

From the Publisher