The Unbearable Shallowness of "Deep AI"

Since people invented writing, communications technology has become steadily more high-bandwidth, pervasive and persuasive, taking a commensurate toll on human attention and cognition. In that bandwidth war between machines and humans, the machines' latest weapon is a class of statistical algorithm dubbed "deep AI." This computational engine already, at a stroke, conquered both humankind's most cherished mind-game (Go) and our unconscious spending decisions (online). This month, finally, we can read how it happened, and clearly enough to do something. But I'm not just writing a book review, because the interaction of math with brains has been my career and my passion. Plus, I know the author. So, after praising the book, I append an intellectual digest, debunking the hype in favor of undisputed mathematical principles governing both machine and biological information-processing systems. That makes this article unique but long. "Genius Makers: The Mavericks Who Brought AI to Google, Facebook, and the World" is the first book to chronicle the rise of savant-like artificial intelligence (AI), and the last we'll ever need. Investigative journalist Cade Metz lays out the history and the math through the machines' human inventors. The title, "Genius Makers," refers both to the genius-like brilliance of the human makers of AI, as well as to the genius-like brilliance of the AI programs they create. Of all possible AIs, the particular flavor in the book is a class of data-digestion algorithms called deep learning. Metz's book is a ripping good read, paced like a page-turner prodding a reader to discover which of the many genius AI creators will outflank or outthink the others, and how. Together, in collaboration and competition, the computer scientists Metz portrays are inventing and deploying the fastest and most human-impacting revolution in technology to date, the apparently inexorable replacement of human sensation and choice by machine sensation and choice. This is the story of the people designing the bots that do so many things better than us.