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Margaret A. Boden
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AI: Its Nature and Future Illustrated Edition

by Margaret A. Boden (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 52 ratings
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Artificial Intelligence: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)
Artificial Intelligence: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)
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The applications of Artificial Intelligence lie all around us; in our homes, schools and offices, in our cinemas, in art galleries and - not least - on the Internet. The results of Artificial Intelligence have been invaluable to biologists, psychologists, and linguists in helping to understand the processes of memory, learning, and language from a fresh angle.

As a concept, Artificial Intelligence has fuelled and sharpened the philosophical debates concerning the nature of the mind, intelligence, and the uniqueness of human beings. Margaret A. Boden reviews the philosophical and technological challenges raised by Artificial Intelligence, considering whether programs could ever be really intelligent, creative or even conscious, and shows how the pursuit of Artificial Intelligence has helped us to appreciate how human and animal minds are possible.
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  1. ISBN-10
    0198777981
  2. ISBN-13
    978-0198777984
  3. Edition
    Illustrated
  4. Publisher
    Oxford University Press
  5. Publication date
    July 1, 2016
  6. Language
    English
  7. Dimensions
    7.7 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
  8. Print length
    208 pages
  9. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Book Description

Margaret Boden considers the realistic and unrealistic expectations we have placed on AI, analyzes its progress, and considers the value of its byproducts.

About the Author

Margaret Boden is Research Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of Sussex, and one of the best known figures in the field of Artificial Intelligence. She has written extensively on the subject, most recently the two-volume work Mind as Machine: a history of cognitive science (OUP, 2006). She has lectured widely, to both specialist and general audiences across the world, and has appeared on many radio and TV programmes, in the UK and elsewhere. She was awarded an OBE in 2001 for 'services to cognitive science.'

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oxford University Press; Illustrated edition (July 1, 2016)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 208 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0198777981
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0198777984
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.1 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.7 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 52 ratings

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Margaret A. Boden

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Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
52 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

RAmazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Artificial Intelligence and why we need it
Reviewed in the United States on July 31, 2016
Verified Purchase
An interesting up-to-date information on Artificial Intelligence. I think it is needed.. The dearth of intelligence among current people promotes the development of an artificial substitute. Yes, miss Boden is more hesitant than I am, but most (intelligent)people will agree with me that we need help, from machines (and miss Boden is one of them). Bu the, the inventor of AI (not miss Lovelace)was driven. to suicide by some outdated laws. Where did tolerance go?
2 people found this helpful
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Stan Franklin
5.0 out of 5 stars Read this book!
Reviewed in the United States on July 11, 2016
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AI is very much in the news these days, both concerning the changes it''s making in our culture (driverless cars), and its possible dangers (a super human intelligence). What's real, and what's just hype? How can I know? Read this book. Carefully researched and clearly written for an intelligent layperson, this short book is the definitive resource on this timely and important topic.
2 people found this helpful
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Lou
5.0 out of 5 stars Así up-to-date.
Reviewed in the United States on August 5, 2016
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Excellent and up-to-date reading on the promise and shortcomings of Artificial Intelligence.
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Liberty Mining
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on January 19, 2017
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interesting
One person found this helpful
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A. J. Sutter
5.0 out of 5 stars An advanced introduction to AI (4.5 stars)
Reviewed in the United States on January 23, 2018
Don't be deceived by the short length and low price of this book: you'll need some sophistication to get the most from it.

The book's main emphasis is on how the philosophy and practice of AI have influenced the philosophy of mind, and vice versa. This is set within a roughly historical narrative about the ebb and flow of various trends in AI, especially the symbol manipulation approach versus artificial neural nets. The final chapter also considers the "technological singularity," concerning which the author (MB) is skeptical; but she includes a concise laundry list of some ethical problems she believes that AI will present in reality and fairly soon.

The prose is very clear, as is the book's structure. It is in fact an elegant book. But while it seems certain that MB intended the book for a general readership, her notion of general reader is a bit idealistic. She supposes you have a certain baseline facility with, and interest in, philosophy, biology and some other fields -- as if you were an Oxbridge or Ivy League liberal arts graduate from the mid-20th Century, who's been reading both Times Literary Supplement and Scientific American ever since.

I read this to screen it as a possible introduction to AI for use in a college course about the social impact of AI and robots, directed to business and global studies students. I doubt it's suited for that purpose, though I expect it will help me prepare lectures and discussion problems. Of course, students in cognitive science should be able to handle this with ease. But many liberal arts majors and even technologists who've never read philosophy will find it a challenge, and may lose interest: MB is more focused on covering a lot of ground than on pausing to explain things in a hand-holding way. Given that philosophy of mind is something I've read about for probably less than 1 hour per year in my 60-something years on this planet, much of this book would have gone over my head too if I hadn't happened to have read a couple of chapters in a cognitive science textbook a day or so earlier. The dearth of illustrations is a significant problem, and why I deduct a half-star: for example, I pity the reader who's trying to visualize neural nets and backpropagation if this book is their first exposure to those topics.

The book contains short-form endnotes and a proper, and helpful, list of references. The index is a little spotty: e.g. Hilary Putnam, who figures prominently toward the end of the text, is absent. (If you know who he was and something about his work, you'll do fine with this book.)

MB will be the author of the same publisher's "Very Short Introduction" to AI, to be published in the second half of 2018. I hope it will be at a more basic level than this work, so that college students and a more truly general readership can get a lot out of it. In the meantime the present volume is the closest thing available to such a quick introductory survey of the field -- about 1/2 the price and 1/3 the length of the "AI for Dummies" set to be published in spring 2018. If you're tempted to try it, be advised: This is a very fine book. But for dummies it ain't.
7 people found this helpful
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naive theorist
1.0 out of 5 stars incoherent
Reviewed in the United States on July 2, 2016
"masterclass of a book Barbara Kiser, Nature Everything you need to know about Artificial Intelligence - a wonderful read. Jack Copeland, Director of the Turing Archive for the History of Computing". this is a totally incoherent editorial review. the book is almost as incoherent.
4 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Cliente de Amazon
4.0 out of 5 stars Buena introducción
Reviewed in Mexico on April 3, 2018
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Muy buena introducción, es solamente un libro para iniciarse en el tema, tendrás que profundizar en los temas por tu cuenta, lo cual es más sencillo pues en él puedes encontrar todas las referencias.
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Mathieu Desbiens
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in Canada on March 29, 2018
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Great!
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AlexM
4.0 out of 5 stars A wide-ranging and authoritative review
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 10, 2022
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This book covers almost all the interesting strands of AI in an authoritative and fairly objective review. Maggie Boden's work and thoughts in this area are well respected, particularly since her 1983 book "Artificial Intelligence and Natural Man" which is a more academic treatment of AI from a perspective which is actually still very relevant 40 years on.
"AI: Its Nature and Future" is less academic but still quite technical and demanding in places. It looks at what has been achieved, why more has not been achieved, and what we might expect to be achieved in a generation or two.
The hype around current "AI" applications is dispelled to some extent, the underlying techniques from Deep Learning to Declarative Programming are explained, and the recent progress (such as it is) is discussed and balanced against the remaining obstacles to both general and specific AI.
Readable yet thorough, learned without being pedantic, this book suits an interested general reader but also has enough notes and references to satisfy a researcher.
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Mark Shackelford
4.0 out of 5 stars An excellent introduction to AI - but BEWARE...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 31, 2018
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An excellent introduction to AI - but BEWARE this is identical to the "A Very Short Introduction..." by the same Author.

This provides an overview of what AI is - a history from the early days of Turing et al., through GOFAI and the "Glory" days of Evolutionary Computing to today's "Deep Learning" which is mostly very high speed pattern matching and will NOT lead to the promised "Singularity" - and far from it...

As the author warns we need to treat AI as a fairly dim and poorly trained idiot, who maybe be able to recognise all the things it has been trained on - but has no ability to Think or be Creative or be able to work out that the huge white thing in front of it is a Truck and not the Sky (see a variety of AI driven car mishaps!)

The Singularity is mostly hype from those lovely people at G@@gle etc., and we have little to fear of AI becoming SkyNet - but lots to fear of putting too much trust and belief into the systems.

Also check out "Artifictional Intelligence" by Harry Collins which has lots of fun examples of how unintelligent the current crop of AI actually is.
So forget Terminator 2 - and worry more about Alexa misinterpreting your command and setting fire to your house!
5 people found this helpful
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