Future Tense: How We Made Artificial Intelligence—and How It Will Change Everything

Artificial Intelligence has the capacity to change everything—at least according to this plainly rendered work by Brockenbrough (Unpresidented). Employing prose that eagerly records the subjects’ boundless potential, the author traces AI’s development from 1950s chess-playing computers to present-day applications. Each iteration of AI has transformed the way society learns, lives, and works and, as mathematician and electrical engineer Claude Shannon (1916–2001) states, “it is certainly plausible to me that in a few decades machines will be beyond humans.” As with many inventions, Brockenbrough posits in unadorned text, there are positives and negatives associated with the rise of AI (“A future with AI could bring fantastic things to humanity and the planet, even as there are some unknowns that can make us feel afraid”): cars that can drive themselves can also crash themselves, and the same systems that can diagnose illness in patients can also write—and potentially plagiarize—papers for students. While many questions regarding the future of AI remain unanswered, Brockenbrough is adamant that “we don’t have a choice in whether AI will be part of our lives. It’s already here.” Ages 12–up. (Mar.)