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  • Published: 11 August 2016
  • ISBN: 9780753551653
  • Imprint: Virgin Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 288

Thinking Machines

The inside story of Artificial Intelligence and our race to build the future




Tech billionaires, reclusive scientists, dancing vacuum cleaners, voices beyond the grave – how a dream from the 1950s became our modern, super-networked world.

2016 marks the 60-year anniversary of the phrase ‘Artificial Intelligence’ and in this fascinating book, Luke Dormehl charts the weird and wonderful journey of one of mankind’s greatest projects, the creation of Thinking Machines.

This is a story of how what it means to be human in the face of accelerating machine intelligence. It’s about trying to make computers that are smarter than we are, and what happens when it goes wrong. About what creativity means when all knowledge is data that can be stored on microchips. Or about what happens when machines can learn from their mistakes much faster than humans can. And above all, it’s about the dazzling future around the corner, how our lives might just change forever, and whether you and I aren’t just thinking machines of a sort as well.

  • Published: 11 August 2016
  • ISBN: 9780753551653
  • Imprint: Virgin Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 288

About the author

Luke Dormehl

Luke Dormehl is a journalist and filmmaker and author of The Apple Revolution: The Real Story of how Steve Jobs and The Crazy Ones Took Over the World. His writing has appeared in publications including The Chap, SFX and Fighting Spirit. He has conducted numerous interviews with people for both print and television, including, Sir Ian McKellen and Alain de Botton. Dormehl has directed several documentary films, most recently The Pantomime (2009), a look at behind-the-scenes turmoil in a small village panto, which was narrated by the actor Simon Callow.

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Praise for Thinking Machines

AI is about to change our world profoundly. This book tells you everything you need to know.

Leander Kahney, author of Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Products

If you’re interested in learning more about our robotic soon-to-be overlords, your best bet is THINKING MACHINES

The Spectator

makes a convincing, often disturbing, but always-entertaining case that that we're in for a wild ride.

Kirkus Reviews

A gifted storyteller who interweaves the personal stories with the broad history of artificial intelligence

Ray Kurzweil, New York Times