Inserted between the author’s dedication and the table of contents, there’s an extra page in Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic’s ‘I, Human: AI, Automation, and the Quest to Reclaim What Makes Us Unique’ (Harvard Business Review, £19.99, ISBN 9781647820558). Floating in a mass of space are eleven words: “This book examines the impact of artificial intelligence on human behaviour.”
This may seem simple – an attempt perhaps to make sure reviewers have firmly implanted in their minds his overarching theme before they start launching into their value judgements. But in fact, they could well be the most important words within the covers of ‘yet another book on AI’. This is because ‘I, Human’ isn’t really about technology at all. It’s about the effect AI will have on us as individual members of a species.
We all know, says Chamorro-Premuzic, that living with AI has changed the way we do certain things. On the upside, we can now leave it to algorithms to sift through profiles...