Generative Artificial Intelligence: What Everyone Needs to Know by Jerry Kaplan.
Jerry holds BA in History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Chicago and PhD in Computer and Information Science (specializing in AI) from the University of Pennsylvania. He is Adjunct Lecturer at Stanford University’s Center for Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. Jerry co-founded GO Corporation in 1987.
This is a somewhat comprehensive guide to the very rapidly evolving field of Generative AI (Gen AI). Jerry is basically conveying GenAI may revolutionize society.
At the same time, Jerry is outlining risks and dangers associated with Gen AI including the abuse and misuse by authoritarian governments to spread disinformation and suppress dissent. Yet in the later chapters there seems to be a simplification of the ethical and societal impacts. There are also concerns that with such a respectable career, a more firm approach to AI ethics was missed.
To be fair, the AI market is so fluid today that the major competitors OpenAI, Microsoft, Google among a small handful of others, it appears somewhat challenging to forecast a market that will surly shift before the end of the year.
How will GenAI be abused ?
In fact Jerry is also addressing the development of AI weapons that could (probably will) change the nature of warfare as we are seeing this play out in Ukraine. Finally he is revealing how cyber criminals will steal data and cheat people on an unprecedented scale with sophisticated GenAI tools including fake phone calls.
This topic is also address in the following books: HBR’s Generative AI: The Insights You Need and Introduction to Generative AI:
In conclusion, Jerry is delivering a good attempt to introduce GenAI in the opening chapters. He does a good job of describing the historical view of AI. This book is targeted at readers new to the idea of GenAI.