Summer AI Reads if You’re One of These 6 Types of Vacationers

As we begin to unwind, reenergize, and soak up some sun, why not take a moment to reflect on the ways AI is shaping the world around us? Wherever this summer may take you; beachside, adventuring in the wild, or deep into your thoughts at a sidewalk cafe, these books on AI are the perfect companions for every vacationer.

1. For the Beach Reader

Dive into a brand new world as you soak up some sun on the beach this summer. These books will keep you entertained on long summer days while immersing you in the what-if scenarios of AI.

• Dream Machine: A Portrait of Artificial Intelligence
  by Laurent Daudet
  The founder of an AI start-up at the core of the ChatGPT revolution, is on the verge of selling his technology to a large digital conglomerate when he begins to see and hear things that raise questions about the true motivations of his client. Is this the deal every entrepreneur dreams of, or the start of a long and difficult battle that threatens humanity as we know it? Get the book
• Klara and the Sun
  by Kazuo Ishiguro
  Klara and the Sun is a thrilling book that offers a look at our changing world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator, and one that explores the fundamental question: what does it mean to love? Get the book

2. For the Thrill Seeker

If your dream vacation is filled with adventure and excitement, these next books will have you at the edge of your seat.

• The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want
  by Emily M Bender and Alex Hanna
  Hype looks and smells fishy: It twists words and helps the rich get richer by justifying data theft, motivating surveillance capitalism, and devaluing human creativity in order to replace meaningful work with jobs that treat people like machines. In The AI Con, Bender and Hanna offer a sharp, witty, and wide-ranging take-down of AI hype across its many forms. Get the book
• Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI
  by Karen Hao
  AI expert and investigative journalist Karen Hao dives into an eye-opening account of arguably the most fateful tech arms race in history, reshaping the planet in real time. Get the book
• Supremacy: AI, ChatGPT, and the Race that Will Change the World
  by Parmy Olson
  In Supremacy, Olson, tech writer at Bloomberg, tells the astonishing story of the battle between OpenAI and DeepMind, their struggles to use their tech for good, and the hazardous direction they could go as they serve two tech Goliaths whose power is unprecedented in history.
  Get the book

3. For the Café Intellectual

If sitting at a relaxing café while people-watching is your cup of joe, you’ll enjoy reading about the ways people interact with AI throughout the world.

• The Age of AI: And Our Human Future
  by Henry A Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, and Daniel Huttenlocher
  In The Age of AI, three leading thinkers have come together to consider how AI will change our relationships with knowledge, politics, and the societies in which we live. The Age of AI is an essential roadmap to our present and our future, an era unlike any that has come before. Get the book
• Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World
  by Meredith Broussard
  Broussard, a software developer and journalist, reminds us that there are fundamental limits to what we can (and should) do with technology. In this book, she offers a guide to understanding the inner workings and outer limits of technology and issues a warning that we should never assume that computers always get things right. Get the book
• Who Owns This Sentence?: A History of Copyrights and Wrongs
  by David Bellos and Alexandre Montagu
  Copyright is everywhere. Your smartphone incorporates thousands of items of intellectual property. Someone owns the reproduction rights to photographs of your dining table. At this very moment, battles are raging over copyright in the output of artificial intelligence programs. Get the book

4. For the Soul Searcher

If you like pondering big questions and exploring places that make you rethink life, you’ll enjoy these books which will spark introspection and deep thinking about what it means to be human in an AI centered world.

• SUPERAGENCY – What Could Possibly Go Right with Our AI Future
  by Greg Beato and Reid Hoffman
  Superagency offers a roadmap for using AI inclusively and adaptively to improve our lives and create positive change. While acknowledging challenges like disinformation and potential job changes, the book focuses on AI’s immense potential to increase individual agency and create better outcomes for society as a whole. Get the book
• The Feeling Of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness
  by Antonio Damasio
  In this groundbreaking book, Damasio — a renowned and revered scientist and clinician who spent decades following amnesiacs down hospital corridors, waiting for comatose patients to awaken, and devising ingenious research using PET scans to piece together the great puzzle of consciousness — explores the biological roots of sentient awareness and its role in survival.
  Get the book
• Code Dependent: Living in the Shadow of AI
  by Madhumita Murgia
  AI has already infiltrated our day-to-day, through language-generating chatbots like ChatGPT and social media. But it’s also affecting us in more insidious ways. It touches everything from our interpersonal relationships, to our kids’ education, work, finances, public services, and even our human rights. Get the book

5. For the Content Creator

Whether you’re diving into the history of a new place or giving people a glimpse into an unknown world, these books will guide you through everything from AI in the news to fine art.

• Automating the News: How Algorithms Are Rewriting the Media
  by Nicholas Diakopoulos
  In this lively exposé of that rapidly shifting terrain, Nicholas Diakopoulos focuses on the people who tell the stories―increasingly with the help of computer algorithms that are fundamentally changing the creation, dissemination, and reception of the news. Get the book
• A History of Fake Things on the Internet
  by Walter Scheirer
  As all aspects of our social and informational lives increasingly migrate online, the line between what is “real” and what is digitally fabricated grows ever thinner―and that fake content has undeniable real-world consequences. A History of Fake Things on the Internet takes the long view of how advances in technology brought us to the point where faked texts, images, and video content are nearly indistinguishable from what is authentic or true. Get the book
• The Artist in the Machine: The World of AI-Powered Creativity
  by Arthur I. Miller
  Today’s computers are composing music that sounds “more Bach than Bach,” turning photographs into paintings in the style of Van Gogh’s Starry Night, and even writing screenplays. But are computers truly creative—or are they merely tools to be used by musicians, artists, and writers? In this book, Arthur I. Miller takes us on a tour of creativity in the age of machines. Get the book

6. For the Long Haul Flyer

For many, the journey is just as important as the destination but while you’re stuck at a terminal or enduring turbulence, this next read about the future of AI will keep you entertained.

• AI 2041: Ten Visions for Our Future
  by Kai-Fu Lee, Chen Qiufan
  Lee and Chen join forces to imagine our world in 2041 and how it will be shaped by AI. In ten gripping, globe-spanning short stories and accompanying commentary, their book introduces readers to an array of eye-opening settings and characters grappling with the new abundance and potential harms of AI technologies like deep learning, mixed reality, robotics, artificial general intelligence, and autonomous weapons.
  Get the book
• AI in the Wild: Sustainability in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (One Planet)
  by Peter Dauvergne
  Drones with night vision track elephant and rhino poachers in African wildlife parks and sanctuaries; smart submersibles save coral from carnivorous starfish on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef; and recycled cell phones alert Brazilian forest rangers to the sound of illegal logging. AI tools are being increasingly deployed in the battle for global sustainability, but is AI the planet’s savior? Get the book