AI Superpowers

Kai-Fu Lee, once himself an AI pioneer, wrote AI Superpowers to help non-technical readers understand how and why AI is changing our world, with an emphasis on how it’s reshaping work. Lee breaks down which types of jobs are most vs. least likely to be replaced by AI, and offers wisdom on which skills it makes sense for all of us to lean into given those shifts. He also offers clear-eyed predictions about the potential for AI innovations to reshape global politics. 

I enjoyed this book from page one. Lee’s prose is crisp and his points sharp. I appreciated his… show more.

I spend a lot of time thinking about the relationship between science in Europe and Asia. Most of my work is historical. But I’m also interested in the future. In AI Superpowers, Kai-Fu Lee gives a first-hand account of the development of artificial intelligence in China and the United States. This book also made me realise that, if you want to know what the future of the digital world will look like, you need to look to China. Even since this book was published, many of the features that Lee describes as characteristic of digital technology in China are… show more.

I love science fiction about robots and machines with human-like intelligence. But this book is not that—at all. Instead of focusing on the far-off vision of superintelligence that may never arrive, it’s about the many smaller transformations that AI is putting into action in the real world, creating new efficiencies by automating what unskilled or skilled humans do. A Chinese technology investor who headed Google China before coming to Silicon Valley to work for Microsoft and Apple, Kai-Fu Lee urges both geopolitical superpowers to embrace the responsibilities of harnessing AI for good, rather than letting it control us. And… show more.