I think we need to forget dreams of machine sentience and consciousness, and get back to intelligence. These are alien minds, unlike ours, embodied in the wasteland of the Real.
Wow Praxis22 sounds like you have a big appetite for ideas 💡 I know about Melanie Mitchell’s highly rated work but these 3 other pieces are new to me, will check them out. Thanks!
Autistic, gifted, etc. One trick pony :) Been interested since the dawn of the home computer, came into it three years ago, been doing nothing else since. Check out Machine Learning Street Talk on YouTube, high Signal.
that’s such a good rundown, honestly. made me rethink a couple things about ai books + how to pick what really matters—appreciate you taking time to make this, michael.
Hi Luis - thanks for your note - it’s really hard to pick one out. But as you ask, here are 3. Reshuffle (Sangeet Paul Choudary); Empire of AI (Karen Hao), and The Thinking Machine (Stephen Witt)
Thanks for your perspectives Keshi. You mention 2 great pre-2025 titles that didn’t feature on the 2025 list. Max Tegmark’s Life 3.0 is arguably the biggest of all, with loads of great insight even though written before the GenAI era. Kai Fu-Lee is also world class. Would be interesting to hear about your robotics book…
This is a great list!
Thanks for the feedback Jeff!
Appreciate that Jeff. Are there any that stand out for you?
Definitely the scaling era. It’s on my desk as my next read
Brilliant write up ! Thanks for sharing mate
Hi Chris. Thanks a lot for your comment!
https://harpercollins.co.uk/products/a-brief-history-of-intelligence-why-the-evolution-of-the-brain-holds-the-key-to-the-future-of-ai-max-bennett?variant=41066050846798
That is good, gives you grounding in how stuff works cognitively.
I have Melanie Mitchell's book on my desk at work.
https://whatisintelligence.antikythera.org/foreword/ free book from Blaise Agüera y Arcas, Google Researcher
https://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Intelligence-Evolution-Computing-Antikythera/dp/0262049953
I think we need to forget dreams of machine sentience and consciousness, and get back to intelligence. These are alien minds, unlike ours, embodied in the wasteland of the Real.
https://aeon.co/essays/beyond-humans-what-other-kinds-of-minds-might-be-out-there by Murray Shanahan
https://web.mit.edu/sts.035/www/PDFs/think.pdf As We May Think by Vannevar Bush
Wow Praxis22 sounds like you have a big appetite for ideas 💡 I know about Melanie Mitchell’s highly rated work but these 3 other pieces are new to me, will check them out. Thanks!
Autistic, gifted, etc. One trick pony :) Been interested since the dawn of the home computer, came into it three years ago, been doing nothing else since. Check out Machine Learning Street Talk on YouTube, high Signal.
that’s such a good rundown, honestly. made me rethink a couple things about ai books + how to pick what really matters—appreciate you taking time to make this, michael.
Burak. Great to hear this was useful 😀… what book is next on your list?
Which one would you highly recommend?
Hi Luis - thanks for your note - it’s really hard to pick one out. But as you ask, here are 3. Reshuffle (Sangeet Paul Choudary); Empire of AI (Karen Hao), and The Thinking Machine (Stephen Witt)
I have read LIFE 3.0 . AI 2041 is also a great A.I. book . I am reading a book related to robotics now but thanks for the list . Needed it .
Thanks so much for your comment.
Thanks for your perspectives Keshi. You mention 2 great pre-2025 titles that didn’t feature on the 2025 list. Max Tegmark’s Life 3.0 is arguably the biggest of all, with loads of great insight even though written before the GenAI era. Kai Fu-Lee is also world class. Would be interesting to hear about your robotics book…