Welcome to AI by David L. Shrier

WELCOME TO AI by David L. Shrier was recently published by Harvard Business Review Press to provide “A Human Guide to Artificial Intelligence.” The author is described as an “expert on technology-driven innovation …. [who] previously held a dual appointment at MIT and the University of Oxford.” He has been working with AI technology for decades but points to three events “within the past few years that changed everything:” Google published Tensor Flow in 2015 making AI information more widely available for development; similarly, BERT was added to open source in 2018; and in December 2022, OpenAI released ChatGPT for wide use. Shrier outlines positives (e.g., job evolution) and negatives (e.g., impact on Brexit vote by AI bots) of this technology. He further contends that “by legitimizing fringe extremist sources, AI newsfeed algorithms and unconstrained chat bots were directly responsible for electoral polarization.” And he devotes a chapter to emerging policy responses to threats like deep fakes.

Inherent unreliability and hallucinations pose another area of concern and Shrier asserts that “it's important to understand AI, because it is more complicated and less predictable than how it is depicted in the media.” He provides definitions and examples of concepts like Centaurs (“powerful human-in-the-loop hybrids that can conduct activities that neither humans nor AI do as well by themselves”) or extended intelligence (“emerging field of how AI and humans can work together”) or prompt engineering (“the art of how you construct a conversation with generative AI”). Numerous graphs contrast experience by country, by income level, and by industry (e.g., legal tops a chart for job exposure to AI). One of the more actionable chapters is devoted to reskilling and developing cognitive flexibility. In addition, Shrier stresses the need for more education and training on how to better collaborate with AI and he points to the “urgent need” for government policy in terms of ethical use, investment in national security, and improved understanding overall (“hope coupled with responsibility”). Helpful chapter summaries appear throughout which add value to this intriguing and informative “guide.” A glossary is included as well as notes which comprise roughly five percent of the text.