Thursday, November 21, 2024

Henry Kissinger & Eric Schmidt’s Big Treatise on Artificial Intelligence Panned in Early, Important Book Review

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Who knew?

Henry Kissinger, age 97, has written a new book. One of his two co-authors is former Google chief Eric Schmidt.

Little, Brown has “The Age of A.I.: And our Human Future” set for a November release.

But very quietly, the book was panned back in June in Publishers Weekly. It’s not a good sign.

PW wrote: “While they raise thought-provoking questions about the implications of AI on geopolitics (notably as European nations debate whether to use U.S. or Chinese platforms), their musings on the impact AI has and will have on humans’ daily lives feel cursory. The authors also rely on familiar examples of AI success stories—AlphaZero, a chess-playing machine, and halicin, an AI-generated antibiotic, come up time and time again. Despite the work’s brief moments of insight and the authors’ bona fides, there isn’t much to recommend this.”

Currently the book is number 843,499 with little advance promotion or sales. The PW review doesn’t help.

“The Age of A.I.” started out as an article two summers ago in The Atlantic called “Metamorphosis.” So at least the authors are guaranteed a decent review in that magazine when the book is published!

Little, Brown might want to change the title of the Kissinger-Schmidt book, by the way. There are a ton of other previously published books, articles, TV shows, and so on with the same name. Just sayin’…

Roger Friedman
Roger Friedmanhttps://www.showbiz411.com
Roger Friedman began his Showbiz411 column in April 2009 after 10 years with Fox News, where he created the Fox411 column. His movie reviews are carried by Rotten Tomatoes, and he is a member of both the movie and TV branches of the Critics Choice Awards. His articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn't so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. He is also the writer and co-producer of "Only the Strong Survive," a selection of the Cannes, Sundance, and Telluride Film festivals, directed by DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus.

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