Co-Intelligence

Is scarcity the defining characteristic of our time? Plagued by unaffordable housing, worker shortages, and a sluggish transition to clean energy, America faces a crisis of underbuilding. In Abundance, bestselling authors Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson challenge this paradigm of scarcity, delivering a compelling call to revitalize a politics of plenty. They dissect the political, economic, and cultural barriers that stifle progress, revealing how well-intentioned solutions of the past have become the obstacles of today. Abundance offers a path forward, urging us to move beyond mere preservation to a future where government effectively builds and delivers, creating a society defined not by fear, but by abundance.

An Instant New York Times Bestseller “Excellent and deeply reported.”—Tim Wu, The New York Times “Startling and intensely researched . . . an essential account of how OpenAI and ChatGPT came to be and the catastrophic places they will likely take us.”— Vulture “Hao’s reporting inside OpenAI is exceptional, and she’s persuasive in her argument that the public should focus less on A.I.’s putative ‘sentience’ and more on its implications for labor and the environment.”—Benjamin Wallace-Wells, New Yorker From a brilliant longtime AI insider with intimate access to the world of Sam Altman's OpenAI from the beginning, an eye-opening account of arguably the most fateful tech arms race in history, reshaping the planet in real time, from the cockpit of the company that is driving the frenzy When AI expert and investigative journalist Karen Hao first began covering OpenAI in 2019, she thought they were the good guys. Founded as a nonprofit with safety enshrined as its core mission, the organization was meant, its leader Sam Altman told us, to act as a check against more purely mercantile, and potentially dangerous, forces. What could go wrong? Over time, Hao began to wrestle ever more deeply with that question. Increasingly, she realized that the core truth of this massively disruptive sector is that its vision of success requires an almost unprecedented amount of resources: the “compute” power of high-end chips and the processing capacity to create massive large language models, the sheer volume of data that needs to be amassed at scale, the humans “cleaning up” that data for sweatshop wages throughout the Global South, and a truly alarming spike in the usage of energy and water underlying it all. The truth is that we have entered a new and ominous age of empire: only a small handful of globally scaled companies can even enter the field of play. At the head of the pack with its ChatGPT breakthrough, how would OpenAI resist such temptations? Spoiler alert: it didn’t. Armed with Microsoft’s billions, OpenAI is setting a breakneck pace, chased by a small group of the most valuable companies in human history—toward what end, not even they can define. All this time, Hao has maintained her deep sourcing within the company and the industry, and so she was in intimate contact with the story that shocked the entire tech industry—Altman’s sudden firing and triumphant return. The behind-the-scenes story of what happened, told here in full for the first time, is revelatory of who the people controlling this technology really are. But this isn’t just the story of a single company, however fascinating it is. The g forces pressing down on the people of OpenAI are deforming the judgment of everyone else too—as such forces do. Naked power finds the ideology to cloak itself; no one thinks they’re the bad guy. But in the meantime, as Hao shows through intrepid reporting on the ground around the world, the enormous wheels of extraction grind on. By drawing on the viewpoints of Silicon Valley engineers, Kenyan data laborers, and Chilean water activists, Hao presents the fullest picture of AI and its impact we’ve seen to date, alongside a trenchant analysis of where things are headed. An astonishing eyewitness view from both up in the command capsule of the new economy and down where the real suffering happens, Empire of AI pierces the veil of the industry defining our era.

Ray Kurzweil, the futurist hailed by Bill Gates as "the best person I know at predicting the future of artificial intelligence," unveils a breathtaking vision of tomorrow in The Singularity Is Near. Are you ready for a world where humanity transcends its biological limitations?

Kurzweil argues that we stand on the cusp of the Singularity, an era of unprecedented technological advancement where humans and machines merge. Genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics (GNR) will revolutionize our existence, promising radical gains in intelligence, longevity, and material progress. Imagine a future where aging and disease are relics of the past, where pollution and poverty are eradicated through the power of nanotechnology, and where our minds achieve unimaginable heights by fusing with artificial intelligence.

The Singularity Is Near offers a startling yet ultimately optimistic roadmap to this future. Kurzweil addresses the profound social and philosophical implications of these changes, confronting both the immense possibilities and the potential perils that lie ahead. Prepare to have your understanding of humanity's destiny challenged and expanded in this bold and inspiring exploration of the age to come.

Imagine a world where computers can learn anything, solve any problem, and anticipate your needs before you even voice them. In the groundbreaking book, "The Master Algorithm," pioneering computer scientist Pedro Domingos unveils the quest to discover the ultimate learning algorithm—the key to unlocking artificial intelligence as flexible and intuitive as our own.

Domingos takes you behind the scenes of the machine learning revolution, offering a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the algorithms that power tech giants like Google, Amazon, and your very own smartphone. He masterfully explains the five major schools of thought driving this revolution, drawing inspiration from neuroscience, evolution, psychology, physics, and statistics.

"The Master Algorithm" isn't just about the future of technology; it's about the future of humanity. Domingos explores the profound implications of this universal learner for business, science, and society, painting a vivid picture of a world transformed by the automation of discovery.

A thought-provoking journey into the heart of AI, "The Master Algorithm" is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the next great technological leap and its impact on our world. Prepare to have your mind expanded and your perspective forever changed.