The Shortcut

An influential scientist in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) explains its fundamental concepts and how it is changing culture and society. A particular form of AI is now embedded in our tech, our infrastructure, and our lives. How did it get there? Where and why should we be concerned? And what should we do now? The Shortcut: Why Intelligent Machines Do Not Think Like Us provides an accessible yet probing exposure of AI in its prevalent form today, proposing a new narrative to connect and make sense of events that have happened in the recent tumultuous past, and enabling us to think soberly about the road ahead. This book is divided into ten carefully crafted and easily digestible chapters. Each chapter grapples with an important question for AI. Ranging from the scientific concepts that underpin the technology to wider implications for society, it develops a unified description using tools from different disciplines and avoiding unnecessary abstractions or words that end with -ism. The book uses real examples wherever possible, introducing the reader to the people who have created some of these technologies and to ideas shaping modern society that originate from the technical side of AI. It contains important practical advice about how we should approach AI in the future without promoting exaggerated hypes or fears. Entertaining and disturbing but always thoughtful, The Shortcut confronts the hidden logic of AI while preserving a space for human dignity. It is essential reading for anyone with an interest in AI, the history of technology, and the history of ideas. General readers will come away much more informed about how AI really works today and what we should do next.

Nello Cristianini has been an influential researcher in the field of machine learning and AI for over 20 years. He is Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Bath, before that he has worked at the University of Bristol, the University of California (Davis), the University of London (Royal Holloway). For his work in machine learning, he has been a past recipient of the Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award, and of the ERC Advanced Grant. Cristianini has been the co-author of influential books in machine learning, as well as dozens of academic articles, published in journals that range from AI to the philosophy of science, from the digital humanities to natural language processing, and from sociology to biology. In 2017, he delivered the annual STOA lecture at the European Parliament on the topic of the social impact of AI, a theme that he is still actively investigating. Cristianini has a degree in Physics from the University of Trieste, an MSc in Computational Intelligence from the University of London, and a PhD from the University of Bristol.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR. PROLOGUE. 1 The Search for Intelligence. 2 The Shortcut. 3 Finding Order in the World. 4 Lady Lovelace Was Wrong. 5 Unintended Behaviour. 6 Microtargeting and Mass Persuasion. 7 The Feedback Loop. 8 The Glitch. 9 Social Machines. 10 Regulating, Not Unplugging. EPILOGUE. BIBLIOGRAPHY. INDEX.