Preface

 
This book relies greatly on the words of others.  It seems only fair therefore that I should hand the book to my alter egos to review, giving them the task, for which they are eminently suited, of providing some penetrating self-criticism.  Here are some of the things they said:

 
If you’ve ever picked up a book and thought that the beginning-of-chapter quotes were the best thing in it, then you’ll love this book.  There are beginning-of-chapter quotes everywhere, except at the beginning of chapters.

There are two kinds of book on artificial intelligence: serious, formal texts for the active researcher, unreadable by anyone else; and polemics, in which the author has to take an extreme position.  Now there is a third.  This is a light-hearted introduction to the field, which touches upon modern research, without technical detail, and gives a balanced view of the various debates.

This book unfolds like Sibelius’s seventh symphony – a single movement in which themes are entwined and elaborated to reveal an integrated, vast vista of revolutionary ideas.  A continuous, coherent narrative about AI is quite an achievement, for it often seems an assortment of isolated research fields.

Over 500 quotations are woven seamlessly into a fascinating saga taking us from Pascal to space probes.  There are 66 biscuit-sized sections, each digestible during a coffee break.

The conceit of constructing a history and review of AI around the quotes of those concerned, and not so concerned, works excellently.  It puts the AI programme in its social and philosophical context, by showing that its dilemmas have been the subject of debate for millennia.  And it holds AI researchers to account for what they have said about AI in the last fifty years.

As an AI researcher, I am appalled at the implications of this book.  We have worked very hard to develop a tradition whereby we are encouraged to prognosticate on the future of our discipline, without too much concern for the realities of life.  Now we will have to be careful what we say and write in case this miserable scribe is taking notes to hold against us.

It beats me why anyone should read this book.  It leads inexorably towards predictions that humanity will be obsolete in twenty years.  If this is right, why waste valuable time reading about it?  If this is wrong, why waste valuable time reading about it?

At last, here is a book on artificial intelligence that your grandmother can read – and with enjoyment and enlightenment.  If she keeps pestering you about what you get up to at the university and says she can’t get past chapter 1 of Russell & Norvig, Nilsson, Moravec, Ginsburg or even Penrose, then give her this to keep her quiet.

Like any reviewer, I consulted the name index first.  I was missing – but I was delighted to find that I would have been in the company of Michael Scriven, John Searle, Oliver Selfridge, Otta Selz, William Shakespeare, Claude Shannon, George Bernard Shaw, and many others.  Who could fail to enjoy such eclecticism?  I feel inspired to try to say something profound for the next edition.

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