AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can’t, and How to Tell the Difference Hardcover – 24 September 2024

This is a different book and convey a different message - AI is not a panacea! The book contains many examples of the false claims and failures of AI. When almost everyone is going in a direction the authors have chosen to go in a different direction which is a bit risky. Companies and individuals are riding on the wave / hype of AI and making windfall gains - from course sellers, marketing professionals and professional scientists. In fact, many hardware (laptop) companies have started selling AI laptops! There few points I want to make about the book. Here are those.1. Authors make a case that predictions are not possible! This is quite opposite to what hard science (physics) tells us - everything is 100 % predictable if you the initial conditions and laws of dynamics (even in case of quantum mechanics). Authors may need to change their views about prediction.2. Authors are right that due to lack of a common definition of AI anything can be called an AI and that is a big problem.3. Authors selectively give examples of cases where AI did not work. This should not consider different from the case of weight loss products or fairness creams in India.4. AI companies and individuals are not honest this is also a claim but it should not surprise us. It is hard problem to crack that why people should not be dishonest when being dishonest really helps. Look the case of research publications - there are examples of papers being retracted from the prestigious journals. Paid publications are common.5. I 100 % agree that big tech companies are trying to make profit out of the hype being created - particularly "existential risks" of AI.This book at least makes people aware that all that is yellow and shiny is not gold.I think a detail investigation is needed to look into the marketing material being sold as research work. One of its examples is technical report of GPT4. There is nothing for researchers in that 100+ pages documents. Apart from that benchmarks and performance matrices being used by researchers are cherry picked and completely useless of real-life validation of the models.

Authors make a very good point not to conflate predictive systems with generative ones, and list cases of many over stated claims of predictive ai replacing medical staff. They take a neutral view and advocate for more balanced research and pro people policy over pro tech companies. I expected more cases of snake oil and some layman recipe of how to tell snake oil apart from reasonable. Also much more technical detail would have been great as the authors are ml researchers themselves. Overall worth the money and in hardcover so good to keep for life.

Very informative book on the major types of Ai and there origins, purposes and way forward. Provides a lot of live examples where it has not worked and a lot of thoughts. What could be the way forward , thru regulation and working together.

A must read for anyone who is interested in AI! Not only for Computer or AI professionals, but for all of us, whose lives are impacted by AI.

Very interesting perspective and also highlights how AI can be used and misused

Sayash in his cool and calm demeanor unravels the complex space of AI, specifically demystifying whats possible and whats not.