Daniel Crevier does a brilliant job of demystifying one of computer science's most misunderstood concepts in his book AI: The Tumultuous History of the Search for Artificial Intelligence .
Crevier, a PhD from artificial intelligence hotbed MIT, re-creates the personal disputes, ideological battles, and pervasive grandstanding within the AI community and provides an intriguing look at a discipline that is still suffering from growing pains. In recounting the dialog between conflicting researchers, he describes "lasting grudges and real tooth grinding" and offers anecdotes of scientists booed at debates. Crevier writes in his preface that AI, unlike other sciences, lacks a "sobering influence, and it shows."
In fact, the "characters" are so colorful in this book that one can almost ignore Crevier's concerns that "when machines acquire an intelligence superior to our own, they will be impossible to keep at bay." We may be able to teach machines to think, but can we teach them to be petty, vindictive, and greedy?
His insights are entertaining, as are his detailed accounts of the Sisyphean effort to match the processing power and finesse of the human brain. The reader witnesses firsthand the growth and dormancy of AI several times over, paralleling the staccato advances in computer technology. Crevier includes the various subdisciplines of artificial intelligence, tracking such advancements as computer chess and the marketplace-savvy expert systems. He also lends some commercial experience himself, having founded Coreco Inc. (which uses AI technology to help computers "see" through video cameras). This perspective also helps avoid a dry academic interpretation.
What becomes apparent by the end of the book is that this science has more to do with decoding human thought patterns than it does software and hardware. It is the mystery of that process that locks in your attention. However, as fascinating as artificial intelligence may be, a nonfiction text about it would incite riots of yawning if it were not for the personality of the science deftly drawn by the author.
Perhaps this is anthropomorphism of an anthropomorphic science, but it works.
AI: The Tumultuous History of the Search for Artificial Intelligence , by Daniel Crevier, US$14. BasicBooks: +1 (212) 207 7057
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