Kai-Fu Lee is a Taiwanese computer scientist based in Beijing. After earning his Ph.D. in computer science from Carnegie Mellon, he worked at Apple and Microsoft before becoming president of Google China, a position he held from 2005 to 2009. Chen Qiufan is a renowned Chinese science fiction writer and the author of the novel The Waste Tide. Listen to the audio version--read by Lee himself--in the Next Big Idea App. As AI and other technologies disrupt the world, we all must familiarize ourselves with the opportunities they pose and the challenges they may create.

Now the threat is artificial intelligence. Or is it really a hope? Only three years ago, computer scientist Kai-Fu Lee published "AI Superpowers," a bestselling guide to the subject. But three years is a long time. In "AI 2041: Ten Visions for Our Future," Mr. Lee has teamed up with sci-fi writer Chen Qiufan to tell us what's going to happen next.

In this week's blog, I review the fascinating work titled AI 2041: Ten Visions for Our Future by Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Qiufan--a combination of fiction and non-fiction about a future brought about by artificial intelligence (AI) 20 years from now. In the fall of 2018, Dr. Kai-Fu Lee's book AI Superpowers brought broad awareness to the AI advances being made in China. He has now teamed up with science fiction writer Chen Qiufan to bring a combination of science fiction and non-fiction in AI 2041: Ten Visions for Our Future. The book asks the question "what will the world look like 20 years from now?" There are 10 short stories and an analysis section explaining the role of AI in each story and why that scenario is plausible 20 years from now.

Behind Sahej, hanging on the wall, Nayana could see rows of colorful masks, which, she learned, Sahej had carved and painted himself. On the first day of the new term, the teacher had asked Sahej about the masks, and the new student shyly gave a show-and-tell, explaining how the masks combined Indian gods and spirits with the powers of superheroes. Now, in an invitation-only room on her ShareChat, some of Nayana's classmates were gossiping about Sahej. From the way his room was furnished to the fact that his surname was hidden from public view in school records, these girls were certain Sahej was among the "vulnerable group" that the government mandated make up at least 15% of their student body. At private schools across India, such children were practically guaranteed spots and their tuition, books, and uniforms were covered by scholarships.

AI 2041: Ten Visions for Our Future is an unusual book. Each chapter consists of a short story, penned by science fiction writer Chen Qiufan, and a related analysis piece from Kai-Fu Lee, CEO of Sinovation Ventures and author of the nonfiction bestseller AI Superpowers. Chen, who also is founder of Thema Mundi, a content development studio, spoke with Fast Company on the eve of the release of AI 2041 about his collaboration with Lee, his own experiences with artificial intelligence, and what machine learning will mean for artists and writers. This interview was edited for length and clarity. Fast Company: How did this project come about?

Lee's technical explanations sit alongside Chen's fictional short stories to produce an exploration of the perils and possibilities of AI. This story, translated by Emily Jin, revolves around a Nigerian video producer who is recruited to make an undetectable deepfake. Touching on impending breakthroughs in computer vision, biometrics, and AI security, it imagines a future world marked by cat-and-mouse games between deepfakers and detectors, and between defenders and perpetrators. As the light-rail train inched into Yaba station, Amaka pushed a button next to the door of his carriage. Even before the train came to a complete stop, the doors opened with a whoosh and Amaka hopped off.

Lee's technical explanations sit alongside Chen's fictional short stories to produce an exploration of the perils and possibilities of AI. This story revolves around a Nigerian video producer who is recruited to make an undetectable deepfake. Touching on impending breakthroughs in computer vision, biometrics, and AI security, it imagines a future world marked by cat-and-mouse games between deepfakers and detectors, and between defenders and perpetrators. As the light-rail train inched into Yaba station, Amaka pushed a button next to the door of his carriage. Even before the train came to a complete stop, the doors opened with a whoosh and Amaka hopped off.

When Chen Qiufan took a trip to the southwest Chinese province of Yunnan 15 years ago, he noticed that time seemed to slow down as he reached the city of Lijiang. Chen was a recent college graduate with a soul-sucking real estate job in the pressure-cooker metropolis of Shenzhen, and Lijiang was a backpacker's refuge. Wandering through the small city, he was enchanted by the serrated rows of snow-capped mountains on the horizon and the schools of fish swimming through meandering canals. But he was also unnerved by the throngs of city dwellers like himself--burned out, spiritually lost, adrift. He wove his observations together into a short story called " The Fish of Lijiang," about a depressed office worker who travels to a vacation town, only to discover that everything is artificially engineered--from the blue sky to the fish in the streams to the experience of time itself.