Artifictional Intelligence: Against Humanity's Surrender to Computers - Hardcover

‘In an age when heady promises and dark warnings from advocates of a fast-approaching “Technological Singularity” regularly make front-page news, this book offers timely words of caution.’
J. Mark Bishop, Director of the Tungsten Centre for Intelligent Data Analytics, Goldsmiths, University of London

‘By highlighting artificial intelligence’s fundamental failures, Professor Collins provides an overdue correction to "the market-driven urge to advertise its successes”. Authoritative and technically accurate, this book will be essential for students of AI, policy makers, business innovators and the broader public for many years.’
Alan Blackwell, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge

Recent startling successes in machine intelligence using a technique called 'deep learning' seem to blur the line between human and machine as never before. Are computers on the cusp of becoming so intelligent that they will render humans obsolete? Harry Collins argues we are getting ahead of ourselves, caught up in images of a fantastical future dreamt up in fictional portrayals. The greater present danger is that we lose sight of the very real limitations of artificial intelligence and readily enslave ourselves to stupid computers: the 'Surrender'.

By dissecting the intricacies of language use and meaning, Collins shows how far we have to go before we cannot distinguish between the social understanding of humans and computers. When the stakes are so high, we need to set the bar higher: to rethink 'intelligence' and recognize its inherent social basis. Only if machine learning succeeds on this count can we congratulate ourselves on having produced artificial intelligence.