Summer books of 2019: Technology

Possible Minds: 25 ways of Looking at AI, edited by John Brockman, Penguin Press, RRP$28

An erratic, but intriguing, selection of essays from many of the world’s leading (western) thinkers about artificial intelligence and the nature of humanity. While Jaan Tallinn predicts the end of the “human-brain regime”, Alison Gopnik reminds us that AI cannot yet solve problems a four-year-old child can accomplish with ease.

Make, Think, Imagine: Engineering the Future of Civilisation, by John Browne, Bloomsbury, RRP£25/$29.95

The public debate about technology has turned distinctly gloomy but here is the ex-boss of BP John Browne to cheer us up again about the promise of progress. Touring the global frontline of technology, Browne sees a “world made richer, freer and less violent by engineering”. A much-needed antidote to the pervasive pessimism.

The Great Firewall of China: How to Build and Control an Alternative Vision of the Internet, by James Griffiths, Zed Books, RRP£20

So much for the hope that the internet was going to set all information free. A Hong Kong-based journalist explains how China has systematically built an electronic surveillance state — and how it is subverting free expression abroad. An alarming and essential read on how the internet turned into the splinternet.

The Creativity Code: How AI is Learning to Write, Paint and Think, by Marcus du Sautoy, Fourth Estate, RRP£20

Oxford mathematician du Sautoy entertainingly explores the nature of computational creativity. Can a computer write music that is indistinguishable from Bach? Yup. Can a computer paint a portrait as well as Rembrandt? Possibly. Can it write Ulysses? No. Creativity is rarely the output of lone genius, he argues, more the collective fruit of a community.

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power, by Shoshana Zuboff, Public Affairs, RRP$38/ Profile Books, RRP£25

This Harvard professor’s demolition job on how Big Tech has captured, and monetised, human attention is a devastating critique of how our digital economy functions. A little clunky and overlong it may be, but this book has become the reference point in the debate about how to regulate the social media giants.

John Thornhill is the FT’s innovation editor

For a look at the best summer books across genres, go to ft.com/summerbooks2019

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