Big issues abound in this month’s books, as we batten down the hatches against El Niño and the known unknowns out there. Luckily, here in our snug bunker, we have plenty of other things to think about. There’s the source of the next big conflict (it’s probably not what you think), how to eat healthily (as close to definitive as you’re going to get), and fighting talk from inside the rush to develop AI.
There’s also the real story of pregnancy loss, giving animals their rightful place, the nature of family, saving childhood, and why humans ask questions. Oh, and there are some silly sums and extraordinary fantasy botanicals for those who fancy a spot of fun. Just in case you’ve been living in an off-the-grid shack next to a beautiful lake for the past few years, The AGI Chronicles looks like an essential re-entry book before returning to, er, civilisation.
The clue’s all over the subtitle, “The inside story of the race to create an artificial superintelligence”, and author Kevin Roose is tech columnist for The New York Times, so he ought to know – a lot. New Scientist will be reviewing it soon in depth, but meanwhile, this zeroes in on the past decade’s efforts by a few companies fighting to build the “most powerful technology in history… artificial general intelligence (AGI) – a computer system capable of outdoing humans at almost anything”. Expect a fat volume (an alarming 448 pages, says the book’s website), based on “more than 150 interviews with insiders at OpenAI, Anthropic and Google DeepMind, as well as unpublished company documents and research memos”.
It will be fascinating to see what our reviewer makes of the book. Just don’t drop it on your foot, OK? There’s a small band of mathematicians (think Matt Parker, Alex Bellos, Hannah Fry and Eugenia Cheng) who somehow manage to make a tough subject engaging, exciting or, whisper it, even funny.
Tom Crawford’s title is certainly enough to raise a guffaw in the hardest of hearts, let alone Pokémon fans. Now try asking, as the publisher does, how many daily calories you would need to feed a Charizard. Could the Death Star’s laser actually blow up a planet?
What is the half-life of the Incredible Hulk? And is the meaning of life really “42”? OK, we know the answer to the last question, but it does sound like Crawford is pulling out all the stops to use his Oxford fellow smarts on the fantasy maths of fictional, often wild, universes.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
