AI 2041

How will AI change our world within twenty years? A pioneering technologist and acclaimed writer team up for a “dazzling” (The New York Times) look at the future that “brims with intriguing insights” (Financial Times). This edition includes a new foreword by Kai-Fu Lee.   A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Financial Times   Long before the advent of ChatGPT, Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Qiufan understood the enormous potential of artificial intelligence to transform our daily lives. But even as the world wakes up to the power of AI, many of us still fail to grasp the big picture. Chatbots and large language models are only the beginning.   In this “inspired collaboration” (The Wall Street Journal), Lee and Chen join forces to imagine our world in 2041 and how it will be shaped by AI. In ten gripping, globe-spanning short stories and accompanying commentary, their book introduces readers to an array of eye-opening settings and characters grappling with the new abundance and potential harms of AI technologies like deep learning, mixed reality, robotics, artificial general intelligence, and autonomous weapons.

Kai-Fu Lee is the CEO of Sinovation Ventures and New York Times bestselling author of AI Superpowers. Lee was formerly the president of Google China and a senior executive at Microsoft, SGI, and Apple. Co-chair of the Artificial Intelligence Council at the World Economic Forum, he has a bachelor’s degree from Columbia and a PhD from Carnegie Mellon. Lee’s numerous honors include being named to the Time 100 and Wired 25 Icons lists. He is based in Beijing. Chen Qiufan (aka Stanley Chan) is an award-winning author, translator, creative producer, and curator. He is the president of the World Chinese Science Fiction Association. His works include Waste Tide, Future Disease, and The Algorithms for Life. The founder of Thema Mundi, a content development studio, he lives in Beijing and Shanghai.

Introduction by Kai-Fu Lee: The Real Story of AI Introduction by Chen Qiufan: How We Can Learn to Stop Worrying and Embrace the Future with Imagination One: The Golden Elephant • Analysis: Deep learning, big data, internet/finance applications, AI externalities Two: The Gods Behind the Masks • Analysis: Computer vision, convolutional neural networks, deepfakes, generative adversarial networks (GANs), biometrics, AI security Three: Twin Sparrows • Analysis: Natural language processing, self-supervised training, GPT-3, AGI and consciousness, AI education Four: Contactless Love • Analysis: AI healthcare, AlphaFold, robotic applications, COVID automation accelation Five: My Haunting Idol • Analysis: Virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), brain-computer interface (BCI), ethical and societal issues Six: The Holy Driver • Analysis: Autonomous vehicles, full autonomy and smart cities, ethical and social issues Seven: Quantum Genocide • Analysis: Quantum computers, bitcoin security, autonomous weapons and existential threat Eight: The Job Savior • Analysis: AI job displacement, universal basic income (UBI), what AI cannot do, 3RS as a solution to displacement Nine: Isle of Happiness • Analysis: AI and happiness, general data protection regulation (GDPR), personal data, privacy computing using federated learning and trusted execution environment (TEE) Ten: Dreaming of Plenitude • Analysis: Plenitude, new economic models, the future of money, singularity Acknowledgments Index