Too many books today are getting it all wrong about the risks of AI. Many vendors and dreamers are telling us there is no risk. It’s all going to be peachy and positive. Others are screeching that AI will inevitably lead to the Apocalypse.Richard Susskind gets it right. His new book, How To Think About
Richard Susskind’s new book How to Think About AI: A Guide for the Perplexed suggests three ways AI might change the workplace–and which one to worry about. He distinguishes three concepts:
Today’s chess-playing computers can crush the best human players without breaking a sweat. This wasn’t always true. A couple of decades ago teams of the strongest humans and the most powerful computers were stronger than either humans or computers alone. These teams were sometimes called “centaurs.” They combined the strength of a mighty beast
Richard Susskind’s new book How to Think About AI has a warning for professionals:
Professionals see much greater scope for AI in disciplines other than their own. Doctors are quick to suggest that AI has great potential in law, accounting and architecture, but instinctively they tend to resist its deployment
The new book AI Snake Oil calls out the major “hype superspreaders” fueling today’s AI bubble:
I was late to the AI party. In 2019 a legal journal editor asked me a question about AI. I replied “I’m 67 years old and have developed a little expertise in a few areas. At this point in my life it’s too late for me to try to learn about something new and as
Hyping the Risk of Out-of-Control AI
Many purveyors of AI snake oil delight in forecasting that Skynet is right around the corner. They suggest that Generative AI is so close to AGI (artificial general intelligence, meaning AI apps that can perform most or all tasks as effectively as any human being). They claim that we
Richard Susskind’s new book How to Think About AI: A Guide for the Perplexed explains how thought patterns affect openness to AI:
The “process vs. outcome” distinction.
Chapter 3, “Process-thinking and Outcome-thinking,” sets the stage for following chapters by contrasting the views of two heavyweight public intellectuals: Henry Kissinger and
How much disruption can we expect from adoption of AI? A new report assesses the issue:
Generative AI and Jobs: A Refined Global Index of Occupational Exposure is a comprehensive analysis from the International Labour Organization (ILO) and Poland’s National Research Institute (NASK) of the possible effects of Generative AI on the job market. The
Here’s the conclusion of my LLRX.com review of AI Snake Oil. In case you couldn’t tell, I liked it:
The Bottom Line
From predicting case outcomes to drafting legal documents, AI promises abound. But as Narayanan and Kapoor compellingly argue, separating AI fact from fiction is now a critical skill for professionals.
AI Snake