It's Alive!: Artificial Intelligence from the Logic Piano to Killer Robots, by Toby Walsh

Staff review by Chris Saliba

In this wonderfully accessible book academic Toby Walsh examines the past, present and future of artificial intelligence.

To get an idea of how powerful the human brain is, here's an interesting fact: the brain uses a mere 20 watts of power, compared to the world's most powerful computer, IBM's Watson, which uses 80,000 watts. Computing power has been growing at great speed over past decades, but will it ever match what humans can do?

Toby Walsh is Professor of Artificial Intelligence at UNSW and an expert in the field. In It's Alive!: Artificial Intelligence from the Logic Piano to Killer Robots, he gives an overview of artificial intelligence, its past, present and future. The journey starts with Aristotle, the first thinker to be concerned with systems of logic, then moves through figures like Babbage, Boole, Turing and finally onto Facebook and Google.

The middle section of the book examines how AI is being used today and how it affects our daily lives. We've become so accustomed to AI that often we are engaging with systems that use it without even knowing. Tools such as voice recognition and Google translate are examples of where artificial intelligence is being used.

As you might expect, the most fascinating parts of It's Alive! examine what the future might look like. Walsh thinks it's a certainty that we will have driverless cars. In a nuanced exploration of the subject, he looks at the ethical issues that we will have to confront, such as how can computers be programmed to make ethical decisions on the road. 

Currently there is a lot of talk about what will happen to work in the future. Large unemployment numbers have been bandied about by futurists and technologists. Walsh thinks it highly likely that a lot of jobs will be automated. Interestingly, he gives an a-z of particular jobs and how they will be changed by automation. The analysis of what AI will be able (and not able) to do throws up quite a few surprises.

The biggest ethical issue the book confronts is the automation of warfare. It's genuinely scary how easy it may be for dictators and terrorists to get their hands on drones and killer robots. The technology is cheap and closer than we might think. Walsh has spearheaded a petition calling for the banning of automated weaponry. He sees it as the biggest threat AI poses to society.

There is much to recommend in this highly accessible and thoughtful book on artificial intelligence and how it will affect society and future generations.

It's Alive!: Artificial Intelligence from the Logic Piano to Killer Robots, by Toby Walsh. Published by La Trobe University Press. ISBN: 9781863959438  RRP: $34.99

Release date 31st July.

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