The Road to Conscious Machines

Great material. The book arrived in perfect condition. I recommend 100%.

An interesting primer about AI

This book provides a great overview of the history, background, pitfalls and promises of AI, or machine learning, without the ubiquitous hype and doom that is much surrounding this fascinating topic. Highly recommended!

A good introduction to a complex subject.

Michael Wooldridge has succeeded in producing a book that tackles many of the issues (and myths) of AI in a very clear and readable style.Michael’s background demonstrates that he is an authority on the subject, being a professor of Computer Science at the University of Oxford, but he is also an effective and accomplished writer - this book is very easy to read and all the important concepts are explained very lucidly.AI is becoming ever more important in our day-to-day lives and so , in a sense, this book is overdue. It not only tells us the story of how AI evolved, but tackles the myths around the applications of AI and attempts to take on the many social issues that we will have to deal with as AI becomes an integral part of society. I didn’t always agree with Michael when he tackles some of the social issues - having just been in a supermarket where one young girl, looking very harassed, was running between a dozen automated check out points resolving errors and exceptions, I don’t see any evidence that increased use of AI will create jobs or wealth for most of us whilst corporate greed and short-sightedness is a societal pillar.But Michael’s technical assessments are nothing short of first class - there are many valuable insights to be found here - there is a very revealing section on how AI is a pillar of fake news propagation - and the book finishes with a fascinating chapter discussing whether it is feasible to create conscious machines or not.Michael also includes some deeper material as appendices for the reader who wants a deeper understanding of some of the concepts behind AI -Neural Nets, and Understanding Bayes’ theorem are two of the topics coveredAll in all this is a well researched, well thought out and well-written account of AI - it’s a very revealing and relevant book which will have a prominent slot in my science library. Recommended.