Current Favourite AI Resources

Podcasts

Eric Schmidt on The Tim Ferriss Show – link
  • Tim Ferriss interviews the former CEO of Google who admits they did not consider the human impacts of social media when they were building it.
  • Short but powerful.
  • Spotify link

Kevin Roose on The Rich Roll Podcast – link
  • An easy to listen interview with Kevin Roose, author of one of my favourite AI books (review here)
  • Spotify link
Eric Schmidt on Making Sense with Sam Harris link
  • Sam Harris probes Schmidt on some of the more philosophical & ethical questions on AI.
  • Harris is a real AI pessimist (see his Ted Talk below…) so this episode is an interesting contrast between him and one of the world’s biggest builders of AI (Schmidt ran google for 10 years)
  • Spotify link
Mo Gawdat on How to Fail with Elizabeth Day
  • This podcast is not AI focussed, rather an interesting exploration of human-ness
  • However in the last 20 minutes or so they start talking about Gawdat’s belief that we should treat AI, as if they are our children.
  • Interesting introduction to the philosophical side of AI.
  • Spotify link
Max Tegmark on the 80,000 Hours Podcast link
  • Be aware this is long and appears to go away from the topic. Despite this, it is worth a listen to explore how AI has contributed to today’s political divides but could also help reduce them in the future.
  • Spotify link

Ted Talks

You’ll see Andrew Ng’s name come up a lot when you start researching AI. In this optimistic talk he compares being able to use AI like being able to write…
One of the world’s leading AI researchers outlines 3 clear rules to create AI which prioritises human interests.
*WARNING* Only watch this if you are feeling emotionally strong – Sam Harris is very concerned about the potential negative impacts of AI on society. This is frankly a pretty depressing talk but is useful to help understand the pessimists’ view.

Books

The Age of AI – Kissinger, Schmidt & Huttenlocher
  • This is heavy but it’s short to compensate
  • Given the academic & professional weight of the authors, I’m sure it could have been much heavier!
  • It gives a clear walk through with where are with AI today, how we got here and how we need to be thinking about AI on a global scale.
  • This is the best all-round book I’ve read so far. Deep but easy enough to digest if you’re new to AI.
  • Link to amazon
Futureproof – Kevin Roose
  • Full review here
  • In short, this is a very balanced book with useful ways that we can each make ourselves more resilient to the risks of AI.
  • Link to Roose’s website
Scary Smart – Mo Gawdat
  • Full review here
  • Another ex-Google executive who is concerned about the future of AI, if we leave it to grow without concern
  • Again, Gawdat also offers many practical thoughts on how to teach AI to behave in humanity’s interests
  • Link to Gawdat’s website
The Fear Index – Robert Harris
  • Bear with me here! I appreciate a classic Thriller is not expected on this list
  • However, I believe that reading fiction alongside non-fiction can help deepen our understanding of a topic.
  • This is a quick and fun read, I won’t say more for risk of spoiling it but it will give you a good insight into the potential of AI
  • Most impressively this book was published in 2011 and yet still holds up. In fact it’s been proven to become even more likely as time as progressed…
  • Link

Courses

AI for Everyone

If you want to take your knowledge to the next level, I recommend this free course from Coursera. It’s run by Andrew Ng, a true AI veteran having built AI functions at Google and Baidu. Ng is one of those rare people who is clearly a technical expert but able to translate that expertise into language that even I can understand!