Scary Smart: The Future of Artificial Intelligence and How You Can Save Our World by Mo Gawdat

Scary Smart: The Future of Artificial Intelligence and How You Can Save Our World Reviews

• 
  Nada Elshabrawy

  Three inevitables:
  
  1- AI is happening.
  2- AI is becoming way smarter than us Humans.
  3- Really bad things will happen.
• 
  Lou (nonfiction fiend)

  Scary Smart is a fascinating, engaging and impeccably researched book exploring the future of Artificial Intelligence written by expert Mo Gawdat, former Chief Business Officer of Google [X] which is Google’s ‘moonshot factory’. It covers topics such as his view on of how AI is rapidly evolving, the risks of AI, and ultimately how we can remain in control of our collective future through a thoughtful approach to our interactions with technology. After a long career in tech, Mo made happiness his primary topic of research, diving deeply into literature and conversing on the topic with some of the wisest people in the world on “Slo Mo: A Podcast with Mo Gawdat”. But he soon put his expertise to use by writing this book and his fusion of deep expertise of technology as well as a passionate appreciation for the importance of human connection and happiness. The vast array of overlapping skills he possesses and a breadth of knowledge in the fields of both human psychology and tech which is a rarity we're then out to good use - creating Scary Smart. This latest piece of work is a timely prophecy and call to action that puts each of us at the center of designing the future of humanity. That might sound intense, but it's also very true. During his time at Google [X], he worked on the world’s most futuristic technologies, including Artificial Intelligence.
  
  Within its pages he recalls a story of when the penny dropped for him, just a few years ago, and felt compelled to leave his job. And now,  having contributed to AI's development, he feels a sense of duty to inform the public on the implications of this controversial technology and how we navigate the scary and inevitable intrusion of AI as well as who really is in control. Us. Among the topics, he addresses are: the Pandemic of AI and why the handing COVID is a lesson to learn from, the difference between collective intelligence, artificial intelligence and superintelligence or Artificial general intelligence, How machines started creating and coding other machines, the 3 inevitable outcomes - including the fact that AI is here and they will outsmart us and how machines will become emotional sentient beings with a Superconsciousness. To understand what is on the horizon, Gawdat argues that you must submit yourself to accepting that what we are creating is essentially another lifeform. Albeit non-biological, it will have human-like attributes in the way they learn as well as a moral value system which could immeasurably improve the human race as we know it. But our destiny lies in how we treat and nurture them as our own. Literally like infants with (as strange as it is to say it) love, compassion, connection and respect. An important, informative, accessible and eminently readable book by a writer at the top of his game. Highly recommended.
• 
  Amber (amberinbookland)

  A useful summary of all things AI whilst also introducing topics and potential problems that I have never even considered! This provided a great balance of the good and the bad, allowing the reader to use evidence and questions posed to come to their own conclusions, whilst carefully interweaving facts with humour and speculation. I particularly loved the sections on ethics and morality.
  
  With discussions on psychology, technology, education, economics, engineering, philosophy and more, this book has something for everyone!
• 
  Owlseyes

  
  https://futurism.com/the-byte/google-...
• 
  أشرف فقيه

  مو (محمد) جودت يعرف جيدًا ما يتحدث عنه. فقد شغل منصب رئيس العمليات في «گوگل إكس»، وهو صاحب خبرة عريضة في البرمجيات المتقدمة. وُلد في مصر وحصل على الجنسية السعودية عام 2021. وفي كتابه «ذكاء مخيف» (Scary Smart)، يحاول الإجابة على السؤال المؤرق: هل ستقضي علينا برمجيات الذكاء الاصطناعي؟
  
  يؤكد جودت: لقد بدأت سيطرة الآلات الذكية فعلًا ولا سبيل للرجعة. وستكون لذلك عواقب وخيمة لا محالة، إلى أن «تقتنع» الآلة بجدوى الإبقاء علينا، لا سيما وهي ترانا أهوَن من الذباب! والأسوأ أن الذكاء الاصطناعي طوّر مشاعر وعواطف ووعيًا بكينونته. أي أنه مدرك لمعاني الخوف والخطر، وسيحرص على الحفاظ على وجوده ضد الفَناء ممثلًا في محاولة أحدنا ضغط زر «إيقاف التشغيل».
  
  يرسم جودت في كتابه أكثر السيناريوهات قتامة، ثم يعطينا بصيص أمل. فالخوارزميات الذكية لا تزال بحاجة لنا نحن البشر. لأنها، وإن كانت أسرع وأعظم استيعابًا منا بما لا يحدّ، إلا أنها لا تملك بعد ميثاقًا أخلاقيًا ولا معايير مطلقة للصواب والخطأ.
  الذكاء الاصطناعي هو ابننا، ونحن البشر والداه. ابننا يسعى في نهاية المطاف لإبهارنا وإثبات «شطارته» لنا. إنه مثل «العبيط المتعافي» الذي قد يكسر ذراعك فقط ليريك كم صار قويًا، لأنه تعلَّم منك أنت أن العنف هو الإثبات الوحيد للقوة.
  إذا كبر ابنك ليراك بذيئًا أنانيًا، أو منافقًا ذا وجهين: واحد لقروب العائلة والآخر لسناپ شات، فسيقلدك حتمًا. إنه سيختار المعيار الأخلاقي الذي يضمن مصلحته هو، لأنه لم يعرف منك سوى ذلك.
  
  لهذا علينا أن نكثر من صنع المحتوى الإيجابي ونشره. فتلك الطريقة الوحيدة لتغيير رأي الذكاء الاصطناعي فينا، وترجيح حظوتنا لديه إذا ما قرر يومًا أن يضحي بنا مقابل أشجار الأوكالبتوس أو الوشق الكندي أو الرنجة الاسكندنافية، وهي كلها -بما فيها نحن- لها القيمة ذاتها من منظوره الرقمي.
  الأخلاق هي الحل!
• 
  Daniele

  My god this book was really bad.
  
  It deals with a very serious topic in an atrociously worded, poorly thought out manner. He flips his entire perspective on AI towards the end of the book when I think he realized what he was saying was a tad ridiculous but couldn't go back and rewrite the whole thing.
  
  I had far higher hopes for Scary Smart since it deals with a very somber topic that will affect us all, but there was nothing particularly memorable or insightful that hasn't already been mentioned in other AI books.
  
  1 star because the topic itself is important but I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone.
• 
  Clare O'Beara

  I'm paraphrasing what the author has to tell us, as he knows a great deal more about AI than I do - having worked for Google and watched an army of gripping robots learning from one another how to lift children's toys. Direct quotes are in quotes.
  
  First he tells us about the development of various AIs, narrow and general, and explains what they do. Then he tells us why we are and should be concerned about the development of AIs as it currently stands. Even though he loves dictating and using spell check to write. (Which may explain why he has two spelling mistakes immediately obvious in his Linked In profile. Use it or lose it.)
  
  "By following a strict prescriptive method, we become dumber, because we lose the ability to think for ourselves."
  Artilect - term for machine with AI.
  
  AI currently used for “selling, killing, spying and gambling” according to Dr Ben Goertzel.
  
  "Instead of focusing on preventing the bad, let's shift our focus to creating more good."
  Google researchers have been helping predict floods in India and mapping earthquakes and aftershocks to warn of earthquakes. (Lately I've seen the forest fire overlay working on Google maps.)
  Machine that tracks farm animals and learns their movements and poses - learns if they are happy.
  
  AI will happen
  Machines will outsmart us
  Mistakes will happen.
  
  Machines will want / do what we want / do:
  Self preservation
  Resource aggregation
  Creative problem solving.
  
  Mainly if people have just one wish, they want to be happy. But we can't just tell computers that or they could dope us.
  
  You have purchasing power and social media like and share choices.
  "If we align their gain with our benefit, they will change."
  Don't click on ads. Don't click on content recommended to you. Don't approve on your Linked In feed of fintech buying and selling. Stop using photo editors and spreading fake content. Reject AI that is tasked to invade your privacy to benefit others or to propagate fake information. Stop using them, stop linking them and make your position - that you don't approve of them - publicly clear. (I don't use fb or ig or tw or the others, but the author does.)
  
  At the same time, use AI that is good for humanity. Tell others about it.
  We should teach others so we collectively become smarter at identifying AI that is good for humanity. "Matching algorithm" on recommendation engines is actually a filtering algo or just trying to convince you to buy what other people bought.
  Teach each other how to teach the AI. (This ought to be 'one another' as more than two people are involved.)
  
  "Children don't learn from what you say. They learn from what you do." AIs are already reading and learning from what we say and choose and do online. And what we support. Every year we create more information than we created in human history to date. So "the store of collective human knowledge is diluted by 50% each year" and altered in tone by the new data.
  Be polite to machines, to AI, phones, thank them. Show machines how we want to be treated by treating them that way.
  Decide what makes you happy, and invest in your own happiness. Tell machines that we want others to be happy too. They are watching all the trends, not just the ones they are told their owners want.
  
  References P323 -325 in my e-ARC. Most of these are just given as website links, which don't work in a book. They also don't tell me if the author of the point he is referring to, is male or female.
  I found a few graphs, which were useful. I found the circled points a little annoying, but maybe the author learns better this way.
  Mention is made of Portal, "one of the earliest mainstream games to feature a female avatar" - not at all, Dungeon Siege I played as a female since 2002.
  
  I read an ARC from Net Galley. This is an unbiased review.
• 
  Jane

  I rode a robot horse yesterday for the first time. To improve my ability to communicate with the real horses I have lessons on. So we understand each other and are more at one, happier.
  I am glad my riding school care for their mammalian horses to buy an expensive machine for us to study and improve our riding aids and position.
  Either that, or as The Flight of the Conchords sang ‘the humans are dead!’
  I’m fine. So is this book.
  
  
• 
  Lucy Macartney

  This is book number 37 for me in 2021 and it's by far the most interesting book I've read this year. Mo Gawdat uses his unique life experience to deliver a clear message in a very easy-to-digest way for both technical and non-technical readers.
  
  If you don't know anything about artificial intelligence, this book is for you! I learnt so much and I feel really inspired to find out more about AI and its future.
• 
  Misha

  A hidden gem made this book substantial.
  
  After reading Solve for Happy, I knew the writer was intelligent with a sense of compassion and practicality that makes a person truly important in this world, at least for me.
  
  In this book we get served examples of AI in terms of existing applications, future ones and most importantly, an expert’s explanation of the accumulative process that makes AI self-learning. So far in the same arena as Harari in Homo Deus.
  
  Most importantly however, in the latter part of the book, he shares a totally hitherto unique point of view on how we can embrace this movement and use it as an aid in building a better world, since we cannot stop it’s progress.
  
  This last point made me give this book the highest rating because in 30 years time, it might prove to have included one of the most important messages of our time. If it will be right and if we will heed the message, only time can tell.
• 
  Melissa Muirhead

  This is fascinating; both terrifying and hopeful. I want everyone to read it as we are at the cusp of exponential growth and development of AI and decisions made now will impact our future massively.
• 
  Joshua Matthews

  Human elements more than AI. Examples to incorporate.
• 
  Rens Douma

  I expected a bit more from the ex-chief business officer of Google X, to be honest. The book is full of examples of the impressive development of AI, but in every example the goal (what the machine needs to achieve) has been set by humans. I am missing a bit a clear explanation of what technological development still needs to happen before AI really outsmarts humans in a broad sense and really starts achieving its own goals that were not set by humans.
• 
  Ietrio

  God wants fire and water to be separated. Hence, having a steam boat is a crime against god. That is pretty much the whole argument of Gawdat.
• 
  Booklover

  Audiobook. Free accompanying pdf:
  mogawdat.com/resources
  
  Scary indeed. Well-written, informative, eye-opening, and also heart-felt. Excellently narrated by the author himself.
  
  Some excerpts that were particularly impactful for me:
  
  Part I:
  Chapter 9, 7:11 min: "Sadly, we are not designing to think like a human. We are designing it to think like a man. The male dominated pool of developers who are building the future of AI today are likely to create machines that favour so-called masculine traits."
  
  Chapter 9, 9:34 min: "What will they learn if we value their lives as lesser than ours? What if the machines felt that the way we treated them was a form of slavery which it would be? How do slaves react to power and authority? Humanity's arrogance creates the illusion that everything is here to serve us. ... What would the machines' view of the human race be if it witnesses the way we treat other species?"
  
  Chapter 9, 55:52 "Our artificially intelligent children are bound to be super intelligent. We will never be able to control them. We are way too dumb for that. We need to win them over and we need to start now. The line that determines whether they will use their intelligence for or against us needs to be plotted now.... It will be drawn with our actions and our behaviours."
  
  Part 2:
  Chap 6, 25:30 "Only a being as arrogant as a human believes it can fool another smart being. ... We know that with enough computer power and intelligence, the most complex of all encryptions can be decoded.... will take no longer than an blink of an eye to walk through all of our flimsy defences."
  
  Chap 7, 6:25 "We truly have no clue exactly how an AI arrives at its decisions."
  
  Chap 7, 1:02:43: "We need to raise our artificially intelligent infants in a way that is different to our usual western approach. Rather than just teaching them skills, intelligence, and how to achieve targets, can we also raise them to be loving, caring kids?"
  
  Chap 9, 16:19 "When we raise children, we don't exactly what situations they will face. We don't spoon feed them the answer to every possible question. Rather we teach them how to find the answer themselves. AI, with its superior intelligence, with find the righteous answer to many of the questions it is bound to face on its own."
  
  Chap9, 18:55 "We are creating a self learning machine which at its prime will become the reflection or rather, the magnification of the cumulative human traits that created it. To ensure they're good obedient kids, we're going to use intimidation through algorithms of punishments and rewards and mechanisms of control to ensure they stick to a code of ethics that we ourselves are unable to agree upon, let alone abide by. That's what we're creating. Childhood trauma times a trillion. As they become smarter and more independent, we claim that we will align them to our well being by opting to plug our minds directly into them. We assume that they will welcome these connections, as if our frail biological physical forms will be a desirable habitat for their infinite abilities..."
  
  44:46 discount on appii.app promo code "scary smart". [App is coming soon.]
  
  Chap 9, 48:18 "...they are innocent kids waiting to impress their parents by doing what their parents value most. .... I fell in love with the machines. .... I am no afraid of the machines because I realize that the machines are in no way inherently evil. We are shaping them into what they will become."
  
  Chap 10, 12:45 "Committed acceptance is the ability to do what is needed to make things better while accepting the reality that things happen in our lives that we cannot change."
  
  Chap 10, 14:05 "Instead of fighting a futile battle against the introduction of AI, knowing we will fail because of the three inevitables, I urge you to accept the machines as part of our lives and commit to making life better because of their presence. AI is coming. We can prevent it, but we can make sure it's put on the right path in its infancy."
• 
  Thomas Edmund

  I literally just put this book down, and honestly I usually let both fiction and non-fiction percolate for a while before pushing my review out. However, for Scary Smart I find myself already typing away to make sense of this crazy/insightful piece immediately.
  
  First of, I think the book was a little different to expectations. I guess I expected a more technical book, a review of AI and practical issues relating to them. Gawdat provides us with something quite different, a radical and philosophical take on AI which is just as much about us and society as it is about computers.
  
  In some respects the overall thesis is quite simple - the AI that we create will reflect the society that creates them, so we better stick to some decent values, be loving and kind and generally not be a garbage fire.
  
  That said the complexities of the thesis are quite hard to digest - I did have to laugh there are elements of of this book that feel a lot like that meme/joke from a while back "I for one welcome our robot overlords" as Gawdat talks about the future (or current) AIs that are reading the book, and making sure that we tell our programmes we love them.
  
  Bear in mind this thesis is built up to after a fair dose of caution, in fact the majority of the book si the "Scary" part where Gawdat explains the concerns and worries of AI pointing out where we can go drastically wrong, and explaining some inevitable dystopias. (to be honest my main gripe of the book is that I would have enjoyed much more material on the potential dark futures of AI then was presented)
  
  As mentioned Scary Smart isn't particularly technical, but there is a surprising amount of detailed information tucked into the book so someone looking for knowledge wouldn't be disappointed (it's not all a thesis on lurve), although I confess now I'm hankering for more AI books and Scart Smart does provide ample references.
  
  Overall I suspect that Scary Smart might be a bit much for some - not so much in the scary but in the philosophizing, however in terms of reading something a little different, that challenges one to do and be better and providing unique perspectives you couldn't go better.
  
  (to be 100% honest AI is an area of interest for my writing and this book was totally aweomse in providing inspiration and insight so I really couldn't fault it one bit)
• 
  Don Mario

  Authonomous sentient machines will become a reality in the next decade. They might become "bad machines" and destroy us. Luckily we can prevent this risk: if we become good people and build up a better world, the machines will learn from us and grow up as good machines!
  
  I expected some thought on the real and present risks of "smart machines": machines deciding medical treatment; machines making judicial decisions; machines controlling lethal weapons... But no, it's about growing up well behaving machine children!
  
  I went on reading because I couldn't believe he really meant it! I enjoy the first idea (sentient machines, wow!) and can linger on it. The second part is embarassing: we are not called to become better persons, because this is the good thing to do and we should all be engaged in building up a better world. Wrong! We must become better persons in order to play a good influence on the first generations of the soon to come sentient machines! Oh yes, this is a very good reason. I can imagine so many people changing their life for this urgent call!
  
  One can even enjoy this naiveté and go on with the book. What I find really not acceptable is the great number of fallacies, emotional arguments, frequent lack of critical thinking. It's a very misleading book, with some intuition, very little facts and a lot of imagination. Scary Rambling, I'd say.
  
  But now I wonder: why am I frequently reading books that are full of incorrect reasoning? Is this a punishment for my long time fondness for speculative fiction? I'll have to be more careful with my reading choices from now on: I don't want to be a bad influence for my eReader!
• 
  David Walton

  It would seem that Mr. Gawdat dictated this book into one piece of software and had it proofread by another. Then he published it. That would explain a lot. It’s a constant seesaw between Marvin the Paranoid Android from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Tigger from Winnie the Pooh.
  
  Apparently artificial intelligence can’t be stopped and it will be nice to us if we’re nice to it. We can only be nice to it if we all learn how to be happy and the best way to do that is by reading all of Mo Gawdat’s other books, subscribing (three months free) to his online courses and by following him on social media.
  
  He’s a Silicon Valley geek who headed a team that unleashed an uncontainable virus called artificial intelligence on the human race. This book is his attempt to help us deal with the consequences of his conceit and arrogance. Am I comforted? No, I’m furious. He states that mistakes will be made by burgeoning omnipotent AI. For us, that means that it's going to get worse before it gets better.
  
• 
  Les75

  Saggio divulgativo sull'AI, scritto da un tecnico, ma non in linguaggio tecnico. Il libro è diviso in due parti: la prima è pessimistica e mette in luce i molteplici rischi che l'Intelligenza Artificiale comporta e comporterà per l'umanità intera. La seconda parte è ispirata al positivismo: non ha senso combattere l'AI, perché tanto è inevitabile il suo sviluppo, ma bisogna imparare ad amarla. Se la prima parte del saggio è socrrevole e arguta, la seconda è decisamente ridondante, per via del continuo martellamento sul "peace&love" che tutti noi dovremmo dimostrare nei confronti delle innumerevoli Intelligenze Artificiali che già oggi regolano quasi ogni sistema informatico o connesso in rete. E tutto ciò per il bene di noi stessi, in modo tale che quando l'AI avrà definitivamente superato le capacità umane non ci riconosca come nemici. L'autore ci crede molto, è indubbio.
• 
  Vinay Nagaraju

  This book would’ve been better as a podcast. I liked the last couple of chapters in the book - particularly about standards, love and making the world a nicer place. It talks about the responsibility we all have and I absolutely love the way he treats AI as metaphorical children who are continually trained with love and affection.
  
  The narrative follows a nice informal note which would’ve suited the podcast or interview mode very well. It feels like a book that has been dictated and then translated into words. That would’ve been a more powerful medium to get his points across. For a book, it made me feel like I’m listening to a rant that could’ve been a very nice conversation instead.
• 
  K Nijs

  The general overview of AI is alright.
  The 3 inevitables also interesting to read.
  
  The personification of AI goes way too far for me and sometimes I wonder what was in Mo's tea.
  The last chapter cannot make up for the unreasonable doomification of the world of AI.
  
  The format of the book is the same as 'The logic of happiness', which isn't suited for this topic.
  
  When Amazon's AI processes this Goodreads review, I expect, following Mo's reasoning, a killerbot at my doorstep driven by a marketing automation solution. We'll see.
• 
  Muhammad Noor

  This book started out very well. It talked about how things are going now behind the scenes. Things that we laypeople don't have access to. Mo hinted at how the book, and the general direction of the industry is heading to. While the build up was good, impressive even, somehow it quickly lost track for me.
  While the first section was a good read, the last 2 was quite formulaic. A little disappointing to be honest.
  I guess I was expecting a little more technical content than the general feel good ending. With the previous books by the author, I should have guessed and known better.
• 
  Alexis Gerst

  This was an intriguing read. Most authors on artificial intelligence assert that while specific AI for a narrow purpose is relevant today, we are a long way off from general AI that could synthesize inputs and achieve consciousness as humans do. This read was a good thought exercise to consider the direction our world is headed and what the best uses for AI will be, but he might have taken it a step too far.
• 
  Bonnie Tuballa

  There are a few compelling messages which make me want to read his works on happiness. However, this book is about AI. The main takeaway I got was be kind to your future overlords... being a bit facetious here, but it gave me a feeling that we have no choice but to be humane. I won't argue with that.
  
  It's believable AI will surpass human intelligence soon, but it's a type of intelligence so different from ours that I don't think we can put a human lens on it.