How AI Ate the World by Chris Stokel-Walker

How AI Ate the World by Chris Stokel-Walker

UKTN Technology Book of the Year 'Easily the most comprehensive book on AI I have read so far, covering all the key issues.' Peter Hunt, Business & Tech Correspondent, Evening Standard How AI Ate the World: A Brief History of Artificial Intelligence – and Its Long Future is your essential guide to how AI went from sci‑fi fantasy to the engine quietly (and not so quietly) reshaping work, art, politics and everyday life. Blending clear explanation with vivid storytelling and investigative reporting, Chris Stokel‑Walker takes you from the early visions of Alan Turing and the Dartmouth conference, through the AI winters and chip wars, to today’s boom in ChatGPT, OpenAI, Midjourney, large language models (LLMs) and generative AI. Along the way, you’ll see how AI spread from research labs into search engines, social media, finance, healthcare, policing, the creative industries and your phone. Through real‑world stories – including the viral “Pope in a puffer jacket” deepfake created with Midjourney – the book shows how easy‑to‑use AI tools can delight, disrupt and deceive, and why almost nobody using them has really thought through the consequences. Inside this book you’ll discover The origins of artificial intelligence: magic mushrooms and Midjourney, the “fathers of AI”, the first AI chess programs, the birth of OpenAI and the partnership with Microsoft. How AI winters, Cold War machine translation projects and government cuts nearly killed AI – and how it came roaring back. The battle for AI chips and the hardware arms race driving today’s machine learning and deep learning boom. How AI is transforming work: automation, productivity tools, “AI doomer” fears about job losses, and the new role of prompt engineers. The creative explosion – and backlash – around AI art, AI music and generative image models such as Midjourney. The dark side of AI: misinformation, disinformation, deepfakes, profit before people and coded bias that can entrench racism, sexism and inequality. AI’s environmental impact and the huge energy cost of training the latest models. Perfect for readers who care about… Artificial intelligence, AI history, machine learning, deep learning, neural networks, large language models (LLMs), generative AI, ChatGPT, OpenAI, Midjourney, Google, Microsoft, big tech and Silicon Valley The future of work, automation, robotics, productivity, digital transformation and tech in business AI ethics, AI safety, algorithmic bias, surveillance, data privacy, misinformation, disinformation, online propaganda and deepfakes Technology and society, internet culture, social media, digital art, creativity, the creator economy and the politics of tech If you’ve ever wondered how we got from clunky Cold War translation machines to chatbots that can write essays, or image models that can fool millions with a fake photo, this book lays out the story with clarity, wit and urgency. Add the paperback to your basket now and discover how AI really ate the world – and what we can still do about it. Reviews 'A witty, engaging book that takes us through AI's bumpy past to help us understand its present, and future, impacts.' Sasha Luccioni, Hugging Face 'Easily the most comprehensive book on AI I have read so far, covering all the key issues.' Peter Hunt, Business & Tech Correspondent, Evening Standard 'A comprehensive and compelling look at the technology that's transforming our world. It's an essential guide, full of surprises, to the technology you need to know.' Matt Navarra, social media expert 'From ancient China to Victorian England, How AI Ate The World is the story of the characters, moments, technologies, and relationships that populate the rich history of artificial intelligence.' Harry Law, University of Cambridge 'Whether you are new to AI or have been following the AI hype for years, Chris Stokel-Walker offers an entertaining balance of history, context and insight that has something for everyone... in a clear, direct way that will bring you up to speed while helping you grapple with what it all means.' Sharon Goldman, VentureBeat 'As a crash course in how we got to this current point of thrilling chaos, it will take some beating.' Ciaran Martin, former CEO, UK National Cyber Security Centre 'It is short, gloriously succinct and yet manages to cover all four bases of the history, technology, business and politics of AI in page-turning detail. I can’t think of anything it missed. Do yourself a favour: avoid the second-rate AI books and give this comprehensive one a try. It is the ideal primer for those new to the industry.' UKTN Technology Book of the Year Buy the book and start reading

Reviews

'An excellent starter for those who want to gain an insight into how AI works and why it's likely to shape our lives' The Daily Telegraph

'How AI Ate the World prodigiously captures the key issues and concerns around artificial intelligence.' Azeem Azhar, Exponential View

'From ancient China to Victorian England, How AI Ate The World is the story of the characters, moments, technologies, and relationships that populate the rich history of artificial intelligence... How AI Ate The World grapples with what the age of automation means for the people living through it.' Harry Law, University of Cambridge 

'A witty, engaging book that takes us through AI's bumpy past to help us understand its present, and future, impacts. I highly recommend it to anyone who is impacted by AI tech – which is to say, everyone on the planet.' Sasha Luccioni, Hugging Face

'A comprehensive and compelling look at the technology that's transforming our world. It's an essential guide, full of surprises, to the technology you need to know.' Matt Navarra, social media expert   'Easily the most comprehensive book on AI I have read so far, covering all the key issues' Peter Hunt, Business & Tech Correspondent, Evening Standard

'Whether you are new to AI or have been following the AI hype for years, Chris Stokel-Walker offers an entertaining balance of history, context and insight that has something for everyone. The story of AI’s evolution is a complex one, but Stokel-Walker tackles it in a clear, direct way that will bring you up to speed while helping you grapple with what it all means — for individuals, the workplace, society and the planet.' Sharon Goldman, VentureBeat

'This book is a wild, brilliant ride through centuries of thinking about and decades of developing machines that can learn. As a crash course in how we got to this current point of thrilling chaos, it will take some beating. Whether or not you agree with Stokel-Walker’s solutions or not, How AI Ate The World is essential reading to understand where we are and how we got here' Ciaran Martin, former CEO, UK National Cyber Security Centre

 

 

Chris Stokel-Walker is a freelance English journalist, specialising in technology. He regularly contributes to the BBC, Washington Post, New York Times, WIRED, Economist, Guardian, New Scientist and Newsweek, and appears on the BBC, Sky News, CNN, Al Jazeera, Times Radio and other TV channels and radio stations.

Chris is author of YouTubers: How YouTube Shook Up TV and Created a New Generation of Stars (2019, Canbury Press),The History of the Internet in Byte-Sized Chunks (2023, Michael O’Mara Books) and TikTok Boom: China’s Dynamite App and the Superpower Race for Social Media (2021, Canbury Press) – the first popular book on TikTok.

His latest book is How AI Ate the World: A Brief History of Artificial Intelligence – and its Long Future (2024, Canbury Press). It has been described as "a wild ride" through the development and uses of AI, the biggest new force in technology. In its review, The Daily Telegraph wrote: 'It is an excellent starter for those who want to gain an insight into how AI works and why it's likely to shape our lives.'

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781914487323
ISBN 10	191448732X
Title	How AI Ate the World
Author	Chris Stokel-Walker
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Canbury Press
Year published	2024-05-09
Number of pages	320
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable