This AI expert found it "both exciting and scary" that Xi Jinping reads his book

Xi Jinping's bookshelf includes not only classics on communism but also works on artificial intelligence, as TV viewers spotted during his new year's speech this year. One of the books that helps the Chinese president understand AI is The Master Algorithm, a 2015 bestseller by Pedro Domingos. In a recent interview with German magazine Der Spiegel, Domingos, who teaches computer science at the University of Washington, said that when he saw his book on Xi's bookshelf, he found it "both exciting and scary." Exciting because China is developing rapidly, and there are all sorts of ways the Chinese and the rest of the world can benefit from AI. Scary because this is an authoritarian government, going full tilt on using AI to control their population. In fact, what we are seeing now is just the beginning.