Category: review

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Book Review: The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman

Mustafa Suleyman’s The Coming Wave is a book in two parts: the first details how technological advancements have propelled humanity forward in waves — he uses the analogy of waves and how these natural forces can change the world around us (e.g., think of massive floods and tsunamis). He argues that these metaphorical waves of innovation are both unstoppable and transformative. The second part of the book serves as a warning about the potential dangers of artificial intelligence and other rapidly developing technologies, questioning whether humanity can harness these creations or if they will spiral beyond our control.

Suleyman co-founded DeepMind, an AI research company ultimately acquired by Google in 2014.  DeepMind was known for its work in artificial intelligence — particularly in developing systems like AlphaGo, which defeated human world champions in the game of Go (once thought to be an impossible task for AI). Suleyman illustrates how these innovations have reshaped industries, improved lives, and spread rapidly throughout society:

“General-purpose technologies become waves when they diffuse widely. Without an epic and near-uncontrolled global diffusion, it’s not a wave; it’s a historical curiosity. Once diffusion starts, however, the process echoes throughout history, from agriculture’s spread throughout the Eurasian landmass to the slow scattering of water mills out from the Roman Empire across Europe.”

He gives a number of interesting examples to support this. Such as:

“Or take electricity. The first electricity power stations debuted in London and New York in 1882, Milan and St. Petersburg in 1883, and Berlin in 1884. Their rollout gathered pace from there. In 1900, 2 percent of fossil fuel production was devoted to producing electricity, by 1950 it was above 10 percent, and in 2000 it reached more than 30 percent. In 1900 global electricity generation stood at 8 terawatt-hours; fifty years later it was at 600, powering a transformed economy.”

However, the book shifts dramatically in tone as it progresses, focusing on the challenges of controlling and regulating these emerging technologies. Suleyman presents a case for why containment is necessary (and that it is even possible) in order to ensure these technologies positively serve humanity rather than disrupt it. Though he acknowledges that this will be difficult, especially in today’s highly charged political environment:

“Going into the coming wave, many nations are beset by a slew of major challenges battering their effectiveness, making them weaker, more divided, and more prone to slow and faulty decision-making. The coming wave will land in a combustible, incompetent, overwrought environment. This makes the challenge of containment—of controlling and directing technologies so they are of net benefit to humanity—even more daunting.”

Well, that’s fun! But I think he’s mostly right.

However, in my opinion, I think trying to contain these technologies is no longer possible. Pandora’s box has already been opened, and it’s likely too late for any meaningful containment or regulation to happen due to the pace at which these advancements are occurring. It’s effectively an arms race as various AI laboratories build upon each others’ work and compete to outdo one another. An earlier passage in the book says as much:

“Of course, behind technological breakthroughs are people. They labor at improving technology in workshops, labs, and garages, motivated by money, fame, and often knowledge itself. Technologists, innovators, and entrepreneurs get better by doing and, crucially, by copying. From your enemy’s superior plow to the latest cell phones, copying is a critical driver of diffusion. Mimicry spurs competition, and technologies improve further. Economies of scale kick in and reduce costs. Civilization’s appetite for useful and cheaper technologies is boundless. This will not change.”

Looking at the reviews of this book on Goodreads, I noticed a lot of 1-star reviews. They seem to mostly be from those who dislike, fear, or otherwise loathe this technology. While I can understand their concerns, I think The Coming Wave offers a balanced take from someone on the inside, someone who is working (and has worked) on creating these AI models. Some of the arguments made in these reviews call into mind Neo-Luddism. Which Suleyman has an answer for:

“The Luddites were no more successful at stopping new industrial technologies than horse owners and carriage makers were at preventing cars. Where there is demand, technology always breaks out, finds traction, builds users.”

Overall, I thought that The Coming Wave was a good read, balancing optimism with caution. Suleyman’s first-hand expertise in developing state of the art AI models lends credibility to his arguments, and makes this an interesting read for anyone who wants to know about the potential societal impacts of AI tools.

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Apps I like: LocalSend

In line with yesterday’s post about how I use AI, here is a post on an app I find useful.

LocalSend has become my go-to app for sharing files between devices. If you’ve ever been frustrated by the limitations of AirDrop or struggled to move files between devices without using the cloud, then this app is a game-changer. It’s like AirDrop, but for everything under the sun.

LocalSend is an open source, cross-platform file-sharing app that lets you send files and text between devices on the same local network. No internet connection or third-party server required.

It works across all major platforms: Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS. I also find it to be more reliable than AirDrop, which can be extremely finicky. LocalSend just works. It’s fast, finds devices quickly, and transfers files without random drop-offs.

Another big plus: privacy. Since LocalSend operates over a local network, your files never leave your devices. There’s also no file size limit, making it perfect for transferring large files without needing a USB drive or cloud service.

I use LocalSend for everything from moving files between my laptop and phone to transferring books to my e-reader. If you’re looking for a fast, reliable, and private way to share files, LocalSend is worth checking out. It’s replaced AirDrop for me in many situations!

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Book Review: The Alignment Problem by Brian Christian

The Alignment Problem, (released in 2020 but still highly relevant today, especially in the age of generative AI hype), is a fascinating exploration of one of the most interesting issues in artificial intelligence: how to ensure AI systems safely align with human values and intentions. The book is based on four years of research and over 100 interviews with experts. Despite the technical depth, I feel that this book is written to be accessible to both newcomers and seasoned AI enthusiasts alike. A word of warning though: this book is has A LOT of info.

Before we get too deep into this review, let’s talk about safety and what it means in the context of AI. When we talk about AI safety, we’re referring to systems that can reliably achieve their goals without causing unintended harm. This includes:

  • The AI must be predictable, behaving as expected even in novel situations.
  • It must be fair, avoiding the amplification of existing societal biases.
  • It needs transparency, allowing users and developers to understand its decision-making process.
  • It must be resilient against failures and misuse.

Creating safe AI tools is both a technical challenge, as well as a psychological challenge: it requires understanding human cognition, ethics, and social systems, as these elements become encoded in AI behavior.

The book is divided into three main sections: Prophecy, Agency, and Normativity, each tackling different areas of aligning artificial intelligence with human values.

Prophecy explores the historical and technical roots of AI and highlights examples of unintended outcomes, such as the biased COMPAS recidivism prediction tool. COMPAS (Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions) is a risk assessment algorithm used in the criminal justice system to predict the likelihood of a defendant reoffending. However, investigations revealed that the tool disproportionately flagged Black defendants as higher risk compared to white defendants, raising critical questions about fairness and bias in that AI system.

Agency delves into reinforcement learning and the parallels of reward-seeking behavior in human, showcasing innovations like AlphaGo and AlphaZero. His explanation of reinforcement learning, and its connection to dopamine studies, is particularly insightful. Christian dives into psychological experiments from the 1950s that revealed the brain’s pleasure centers and their connection to dopamine. Rats in these studies would press a lever to stimulate these areas thousands of times per hour, foregoing food and rest. Later research established that dopamine serves as the brain’s “reward scalar,” which helps influence decision-making and learning. This biological mechanism has parallels in reinforcement learning, where AI agents maximize reward signals to learn optimal behaviors.

Normativity examines philosophical debates and techniques like inverse reinforcement learning, which enables AI to infer human objectives by observing behavior. Christian connects these discussions to ethical challenges, such as defining fairness mathematically and balancing accuracy with equity in predictive systems. He also highlights key societal case studies, including biases in word embeddings and historical medical treatment patterns that skew AI decisions.

Christian interweaves these sections with interviews, anecdotes, and historical case studies that breathe life into the technical and ethical complexities of AI alignment.

He also delivers numerous warnings, such as:

“As we’re on the cusp of using machine learning for rendering basically all kinds of consequential decisions about human beings in domains such as education, employment, advertising, health care and policing, it is important to understand why machine learning is not, by default, fair or just in any meaningful way.”

This observation underscores the important implications of deploying machine learning systems in critical areas of human life. When algorithms are used to make decisions about education, employment, or policing, the stakes are insanely high. These systems, often trained on historical data, can perpetuate or amplify societal biases, leading to unfair outcomes. This calls for deliberate oversight and careful design to ensure these technologies promote equity and justice rather than exacerbate existing inequalities. (Boy, oh boy — fat chance of that in light of current events in January 2025)

Christian also highlights some of the strengths of machine learning. These systems can detect patterns in data that are invisible to human eyes, uncovering insights that were previously thought impossible. For example:

“They (doctors) were in for an enormous shock. The network could almost perfectly tell a patient’s age and sex from nothing but an image of their retina. The doctors on the team didn’t believe the results were genuine. ‘You show that to someone,’ says Poplin, ‘and they say to you, “You must have a bug in your model. ‘Cause there’s no way you can predict that with such high accuracy.” . . . As we dug more and more into it, we discovered that this wasn’t a bug in the model. It was actually a real prediction.”

Examples like this show the real-world potential of machine learning to revolutionize fields such as healthcare by identifying patterns that humans might overlook. However, these benefits are accompanied by significant challenges, such as the “black box” nature of AI decision-making, where it remains difficult to determine what features a model is actually using.

Christian shows how understanding these technical challenges, alongside ethical frameworks, can lead to more robust and equitable AI systems. These considerations emphasize the nature of AI safety, which requires combining insights from cognitive science, social systems, and technical innovations to address both immediate and long-term risks.

While the book is dense (very dense!) and information-rich, this strength can also be a drawback. Some sections felt overly detailed, and the pacing, especially in the latter half, left me feeling fatigued.

Despite this, The Alignment Problem remains a compelling and optimistic exploration of how researchers are tackling AI safety challenges. I think this book is an insightful read for anyone interested in AI and will leave you thinking about our future AI overlords long after you’ve turned the last page.

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“Nexus” by Yuval Noah Harari

Yuval Noah Harari’s latest book, Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI, was a fascinating (if sometimes overwhelming) journey through human history that explores the power (and the peril) of information. From the first markings inscribed on stone walls to the potential all-seeing eye of artificial intelligence, Harari takes readers on a sweeping tour of how information and stories have shaped human networks — and, by extension, civilization.

The central idea in Nexus is that information is one of the key forces that connects people, enabling us to cooperate on a massive scale. Harari illustrates this point with a bunch of historical examples, from the canonization of the Bible to the use of propaganda under totalitarian regimes. He argues that information doesn’t merely represent reality; rather, it creates new realities through the power of shared stories, myths, and ideologies. This gives us some insight into the forces that have shaped society—sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.

One interesting part of the book is Harari’s thoughts on the relationship between information and truth. Harari references a Barack Obama speech in Shanghai in 2009, where Obama said, ‘I am a big believer in technology and I’m a big believer in openness when it comes to the flow of information. I think that the more freely information flows, the stronger the society becomes.‘

Harari calls this view naive, pointing out that while openness is important, the reality of how information is used is much more complicated. He argues that information isn’t inherently the same as truth; it’s been manipulated countless times throughout history to serve those in power. This kind of manipulation is especially evident in the recent rise of populism, which, as Harari explains, is all about the belief that there’s no objective truth and that power is the only reality.

He explains, ‘In its more extreme versions, populism posits that there is no objective truth at all and that everyone has “their own truth,” which they wield to vanquish rivals. According to this worldview, power is the only reality. All social interactions are power struggles, because humans are interested only in power. The claim to be interested in something else—like truth or justice—is nothing more than a ploy to gain power.‘

Harari warns that when populism uses information purely as a weapon, it ends up eroding the very concept of language itself. Words like ‘facts,’ ‘accurate,’ and ‘truthful’ lose their meaning, as any mention of ‘truth’ prompts the question, ‘Whose truth?’ This theme feels especially relevant today, with misinformation and propaganda shaping public opinion in big ways.

Harari gives a sobering take on the rise of AI and how it could impact our information networks. He says, “silicon chips can create spies that never sleep, financiers that never forget and despots that never die” and goes on to warn that AI, with its power for massive surveillance and data processing, could lead to levels of control and manipulation we’ve never seen before—potentially an existential threat we need to face.

For me, Nexus was a thought-provoking and engaging read, though at times it felt very alarmist. While Harari’s concerns are definitely worth thinking about, I think adaptation is key: these AI systems and tools are here, and we have to learn how to use them and live with them — like right now — today!

Overall, I’d give Nexus 4 out of 5 stars. Harari offers a sweeping narrative that makes you think about the role of information in our lives, and the choices we need to make as we stand on the brink of the AI era. It’s a worthy read for anyone interested in understanding the historical roots of our current information age and what it might mean for our future.

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Book Review: Palo Alto by Malcolm Harris

I really struggled and finished this out of spite.

I went into it wanting to like it and hoping to learn more about the history of a specific part of California (I recently read and enjoyed “California: An American History” by John Faragher and it stoked my interest in looking for more books related to our state).

Oh, wow. What did I get myself into? This book could have been half as long and still tried to make its point: Palo Alto is the center of all evil and suffering on Earth, anyone who went to school at Stanford or started a company there had ulterior motives on world domination and fantasies of oppression, everyone is driven by a profit motive above all else, here’s 1,000 reasons why capitalism is bad, the only way to right the wrongs of the millions that have suffered or been killed due to Palo Alto ideas and inventions is to give the land back, blah, blah, blah.

Okay, Yes! There are unfortunate things that happened due to people and companies in this town that have caused people around the world to suffer. But this is not an exclusively Palo Alto problem, nor is it exclusively a capitalist problem. There are a lot of things that happened or been created here that have also been a benefit and this book just takes every opportunity to tear down and complain… about literally everything.

Maybe 1.5 stars? I am loathe to round up because I think this book is a bit disingenuous in its claims and the author has an axe (probably made in Palo Alto) that they wish to grind.

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Book Review: The Explosive Child

This was one of the first books I’ve read that so specifically addressed the unique difficulties we’ve been encountering with one of our kids, and the insight it provided was eye-opening and validating.

Dr. Greene’s descriptions of some scenarios people encounter at home were strikingly accurate. It kind of shook me up with how absolutely on the mark some of these descriptions and scenarios were. For me, the scenarios depicted weren’t just abstract concepts but felt like real-life situations that played out in our home.

It had some interesting ideas and strategies for navigating situations that might cause these explosions that I can’t wait to try. Namely, a concept called “collaborative problem solving”, which involves validating your child’s feelings and concerns and then working with them to come up with a solution.

The book is refreshingly honest about the complexity of these challenges, acknowledging that there’s no magic solution or quick fix. Even though there is no silver bullet, it definitely gives me hope that the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t an oncoming train.

I found “The Explosive Child” to be an insightful and valuable resource.

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Book Review: The Last Island by Adam Goodheart

A few days ago, I stumbled upon a Reddit post about someone taking a photo as they flew over North Sentinel Island. I can’t recall hearing about this particular island at all, so I popped into the comments to see what the big deal was.

As it turns out, this island has one of the last remaining un-contacted tribes on Earth. Oh! Now this is interesting. It’s especially relevant, because a recently released book dives into the history of this island.

The Last Island, by Adam Goodheart, documents the author’s journey to the Andaman Islands in the late 90’s and his attempt to see the island with his own eyes.

It’s a very quick read (272 pages) and I went through it in about 2 days. After the author sharing his initial experience with visiting the Andamans, he explores the history of British colonization of the archipelago, the attempts to convert (“save”) local tribespeople, and some of the exploitation and abuse that happened as well.

More recently, attempts to interact with native tribespeople in other parts of the Andaman Islands has given insight into various issues the tribes face as they integrate with modern society. Disease is obviously the biggest, but alcoholism plays a part as well:

They live now in a restricted tribal reserve at the southern end of the island; these onetime hunter-gatherers now depend largely on food supplied by the Indian authorities. Malnutrition rates, alcoholism, and infant mortality are reportedly high. In 2008, at least eight Onge men and boys⁠—almost a tenth of the tribe’s remaining population⁠—died after drinking the contents of a bottle that they had found on the beach, which they believed to be an alcoholic beverage; it was actually a toxic chemical solvent.

Through it all, a tiny little island located 20 miles off the coast seemed to defy these attempts. It’s partly due to the treacherous reefs around the island, and partly due to the fact that British colonizers saw nothing of value on the tiny island.

Calling the Sentinelese an “un-contacted” tribe is a bit of a misnomer, since there were various expeditions throughout the last 100 years or so that involved kidnapping (!), dropping off various gifts (coconuts, pots and pans), a shipwreck in 1981 (check it out on Google Maps!), and the misguided attempts of an American evangelical who illegally landed on the island in 2018 and was quickly killed by the inhabitants.

In 1956, the Indian government passed a law that prohibited visitors from coming in contact with the island (though as seen above, this has not been strictly enforced). In more recent times, the Sentinelese have taken a more protective approach (rightly so, considering recent history).

Via Wikipedia:

The Sentinelese have repeatedly attacked approaching vessels, whether the boats were intentionally visiting the island or simply ran aground on the surrounding coral reef. The islanders have been observed shooting arrows at boats, as well as at low-flying helicopters. Such attacks have resulted in injury and death. In 2006, islanders killed two fishermen whose boat had drifted ashore, and in 2018 an American Christian missionary, 26-year-old John Chau, was killed after he attempted to make contact with the islanders three separate times and paid local fishermen to transport him to the island.

Overall, I thought the book was an interesting look at the history of this area, and an exploration into our fascination with un-contacted tribes that still exist in the modern world and the way in which we tend to idealize them (and treat them in a similar way to the animals we see at the zoo or on a safari).

3/5 stars

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Book Review: Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson

I recently finished Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson. I’ve long been intrigued by Leonardo and his seemingly limitless curiosity. I think I decided to finally pick up this book due to the release of another Isaacson biography that I don’t really have a desire to read — Elon Musk (cue booing sounds).

While I appreciated learning about Leonardo’s various endeavors and various aspects of his personal life, I found myself distracted by Isaacson’s narrative style. Maybe I’ve read too many of his books as of late (Benjamin Franklin, Einstein, Steve Jobs, Innovators, and Code Breaker), but I’ve found that his method of telling a biography has become somewhat repetitive.

That said, the book isn’t without its merits. The accounts of Leonardo’s projects, especially insights into various works such as his anatomical studies, the Last Supper and the Mona Lisa held my attention. These serve as reminders of da Vinci’s unique contributions to both art and science.

For those unfamiliar with Isaacson’s previous works, this biography might come off as more enlightening. But as someone who’s journeyed through his other books, there was a sense of “been there, read that.”

Overall, “Leonardo da Vinci” earns a 3 out of 5 from me. Informative, but perhaps not the standout biography of Leonardo I was hoping for.

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Book Review: The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes

The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes captured my attention from start to finish. Going into it, I was fascinated by the idea of understanding the convergence of minds that led to the creation of one of history’s most powerful and controversial weapons. And of course, the recent buzz about the Oppenheimer movie contributed to this interest as well.

Rhodes doesn’t just delve into the technicalities of the bomb’s construction, which, on its own, would have been captivating. He masterfully presents the lives, backgrounds, and motivations of the characters involved.

A large part of the first third or so of the book digs into nuclear chemistry and the intense research going on to figure out these chain reactions. It was just absolutely fascinating.

What I found particularly interesting were the insights into the parallel efforts in Japan and Germany. It provided a unique view of the global race that was underway, further elevating the stakes and suspense of the story.

Throughout the book, there was this compelling juxtaposition: the brilliance of the minds at work against the backdrop of the impending devastation their creation would bring. It’s a testament to Rhodes’s storytelling that he managed to weave these narratives seamlessly.

“The Making of the Atomic Bomb” was a stellar read, and it easily gets a 5 out of 5 from me. For anyone curious about the people and the drama behind the science, this is a must-read.

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Book Review: The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green

I’m just going to start off and say that this was a beautifully written book and it really struck a chord with me.

The Anthropocene Reviewed is a collection of essays adapted from a number of episodes from John Green’s podcast. I hadn’t actually heard of the podcast before, so the material in this book was new to me. Each chapter in the book is a review of a different subject on something created by or affecting humankind.

Everything from Dr. Pepper and Canadian geese to the Notes app on our phones and the Internet in general. The chapters are part review and also part historical research. I just loved it. I think part of the reason I enjoyed this book was because we’re roughly the same age. So, a number of his thoughts and experiences roughly correlated with my own. “Are you me?!” is something I thought a number of times in the book.

Take, for example, his review of Super Mario Kart:

I was in tenth grade when Super Mario Kart was released, and as far as my friends and I were concerned, it was the greatest video game ever. We spent hundreds of hours playing it. The game was so interwoven into our high school experience that, even now, the soundtrack takes me back to a linoleum-floored dorm room that smelled like sweat and Gatorade. I can feel myself sitting on a golden microfiber couch that had been handed down through generations of students, trying to out-turn my friends Chip and Sean on the final race of the Mushroom Cup.

We almost never talked about the game while playing it—we were always talking over each other about our flailing attempts at romance or the ways we were oppressed by this or that teacher or the endless gossip that churns around insular communities like boarding schools. We didn’t need to talk about Mario Kart, but we needed Mario Kart to have an excuse to be together—three or four of us squeezed on that couch, hip to hip. What I remember most was the incredible—and for me, novel—joy of being included.

That rang so true.

Another chapter of the book reviews Canadian geese. Fun fact: growing up, my mom had a flock of (non-Canadian) geese in our yard. The wings were clipped, so they couldn’t fly away. But I have distinct memories of them running after me in the backyard, pecking at my legs and back. And that awful honking. It’s no wonder that I really think that geese are the worst animals in the world.

But even though Canada geese are perfectly adapted to the human-dominated planet, they seem to feel nothing but disdain for actual humans. Geese honk and strut and bite to keep people away, even though they’re thriving because of our artificial lakes and manicured lawns. In turn, many of us have come to resent Canada geese as a pest animal. I know I do.

Image of how I remember what my mom’s geese looked like. Probably. Image generated using Midjourney AI.

The Anthropocene Reviewed is of my favorite books that I’ve read this year.

The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green