5 Books That Will Change How You Think About AI
Void Star by Zachary Mason is a mind-bending literary science fiction novel that tells the most subtle story I’ve ever read about the future of AI. Mason is a computer scientist and weaves deep, challenging ideas about digital cognition into a globe-trotting adventure packed with intrigue, parkour, and high-fashion. A philosophical thriller of the highest caliber, it left me wrestling with paradoxes I’d never considered.
Metazoa by Peter Godfrey-Smith is a profound synthesis of philosophy and biology that explores what science has learned about the evolutionary basis for subjective experience in order to ask better questions about consciousness. By closely examining the lives of shrimp, fish, octopuses, and many more of our animal cousins, Godfrey-Smith illuminates countless subtle truths about what it means to be human. Learning how biological intelligence works is especially valuable when everyone’s talking about artificial intelligence, but, most importantly, this book will help you better understand yourself and the people you love.
Gnomon by Nick Harkaway is a mind-bending labyrinth of a science fiction novel that splices the allure and danger of an algorithmically optimized society into a fiendish Borgesian puzzle box. Detectives, artists, financiers, alchemists, and conspirators vie for position in a dance that nobody completely understands, but that will shape the future of a nation. Harkaway’s prose is a literary disco ball that glitters with big ideas, satisfying twists, and resonant characters.
The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler is a gripping near-future thinker-thriller that offers the reader one of fiction’s greatest gifts: new ways of seeing. There is so much fun to be had in these pages — secret islands, drone swarms, spiraling intrigue, rogue scientists, and more octopuses than the cover leads you to expect — and this is one of those rare stories where fun and depth not only coexist, but reenforce each other: the adventure will suck you in for its own sake and spit you out mind reeling with fresh ideas and heart expanding to find ever more empathy not just for other people, but other species.
My most recent novel, Foundry, is about two spies locked in a room with a gun vying over how semiconductors will refactor 21st century geopolitics. The story riffs on the power and consequences of controlling the intricate supply chain behind the chips that underlie accelerating advances in AI. Chris Yeh, co-author of Blitzscaling, says, “The most important resource isn’t gold, oil, or rice. Semiconductors control the world, and Peper’s new thriller explores the implications.”
