Verity Harding

It's not bad, but despite the title most of the book does not actually have anything to do with AI. Rather, the author examines how other controversial technologies have been dealt with by society. The idea is that we learn how to handle messy situations with far-reaching implications. Not a bad idea, but it didn't really work.

The section on the manned moon mission didn't seem to have relevance, other than the obvious observation that if we throw a shit-ton of money and political will at a show more problem, we can quickly make a great deal of progress.
The section on IVF gets so deep in the weeds of internal British politics during the Thatcher Administration that it's almost jarring when 3 days later she suddenly remembers what the book is supposed to be about and hastily mentions AI again.
Then she does the same thing with Al Gore and Internet governance. At least here she's able to draw some parallels between ICANN and the possibility for a similar organisation to regulate AI. show less