Despite the high level of technological awareness and constant use of artificial intelligence, most modern users do not understand its importance for the development or destruction of humanity. Before reading this book, I did not realize this either, so in the review I will talk about artificial intelligence, its benefits and dangers. We will also talk about the book itself, the quality of its writing and publication.

“The Big Nine. How IT giants and their smart machines can change humanity” / The Big Nine:

Author Amy Webb
Publishing house Vivat
Pages 352
Year 2020
Cover solid
Language Ukrainian
Site kniga.biz.ua

Amy Webb is an American futurologist, writer, founder and CEO of the Future Today Institute. In his book The Big Nine. How IT giants and their smart machines can change humanity,” she says that modern users are quite careless about artificial intelligence and its development. We think we are in control of this process, but in reality the author does not think so and this can lead to undesirable consequences.

She does not suggest that artificial intelligence will destroy us. On the contrary, it is we, the people, who are able to distort its development so much that we will cause many of the most unpleasant problems for ourselves.

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The book consists of three parts. In the first, the author tells a short and interesting history of the creation of artificial intelligence, and also refers to the role played in its development by the world’s nine largest technology companies (Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, IBM, Apple, Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent).

The second part consists of three scenarios for the development of artificial intelligence in the next 50 years. Amy Webb describes the optimistic, pragmatic and catastrophic options. All of them make you seriously think about the future.

In the third part of the book, the author offers real solutions to the problems of artificial intelligence today and presents a rather detailed plan. She not only transfers obligations to the authorities of the USA, China and other developed countries, but also says that every modern person should deal with this issue, because our lives literally depend on it.

According to the author, the aforementioned Big Nine are engaged in the development of artificial intelligence without our control, and the AIs created by them are limited in development and do not meet modern ethical principles. They are guided only by a financial (USA) or ideological (China) principle.

Amy Webb believes that the developers themselves are to blame for this. In the US, they are quite biased on many important issues, and they also know very little about ethics, because instead of it, universities teach anything but that. And in China, no one asks the opinions of programmers, and they follow the government’s decrees.

Artificial intelligence will be able to solve many of humanity’s problems, but if its development goes wrong, then AI will become our greatest danger. The connection between us and closed artificial intelligences developed by companies is also important. Webb says that now instead of a connection there is a chasm and it is getting wider and wider.

The book “Big Nine. How IT giants and their smart machines can change humanity”, published by Vivat publishing house in 2020. The edition was made in a hardcover and with a satin ribbon that is easy to read.

The paper is quite thick, soft and pleasant to the touch. Its color is closer to white, but still slightly yellowish. The medium font is quite bold. It is pleasant to read even on an outstretched hand. There are no illustrations, diagrams, pictures or photographs.

Despite the complexity of the topic, the book is interesting and easy to read. Its content is not overloaded, and the volume simultaneously reveals the topic, but does not force you to look at how many pages are left to the end. The author has a pleasant and simple writing style, he explains many nuances, carefully touches on history, technology, science and the basics of studying artificial intelligence.

Pros:
interesting disclosure of the topic, pleasant to read and not overloaded writing style, high quality of the publication, comfortable satin ribbon

Cons:
quite detailed and sometimes overloaded with assumptions futuristic sections

Conclusion:
Amy Webb’s book “The Big Nine. How IT giants and their intelligent machines can change humanity” can be recommended to any modern reader, especially fans of non-fiction and popular science literature on the topic of technology