How AI Ate the World

Chris Stokel-Walker is a freelance English journalist, specialising in technology. He regularly contributes to the BBC, Washington Post, New York Times, WIRED, Economist, Guardian, New Scientist and Newsweek, and appears on the BBC, Sky News, CNN, Al Jazeera, Times Radio and other TV channels and radio stations.Chris is author of YouTubers: How YouTube Shook Up TV and Created a New Generation of Stars (2019, Canbury Press), and TikTok Boom: China's Dynamite App and the Superpower Race for Social Media (2021, Canbury Press) - the first popular book on TikTok.His latest book is The History of the Internet in Byte-Sized Chunks (2023, Michael O'Mara Books).

Artificial intelligence will shake up life in the 2020s as dramatically as the internet did in the 2000s. This accessible, up-to-date book charts AI’s rise from its origins in Cold War America to its imminent and far-reaching impact on all of us now.

INTRODUCTION 1 PART 1: ORIGINS 6 Chapter 1: MAGIC MUSHROOMS AND A MAGIC TOOL 8 Chapter 2: THE FATHERS OF AI 14 Chapter 3: THE AI WINTER LOOMS 27 Chapter 4: OVER TO JAPAN 35 Chapter 5: SHALL WE PLAY A GAME? 45 Chapter 6: READY STEADY, GO! 54 Chapter 7: THE BATTLE FOR AI CHIPS 61 Chapter 8: THE BIRTH OF OPENAI 72 Chapter 9: ATTENTION TRANSFORMS FORTUNES 82 Chapter 10: ENTER MICROSOFT 89PART 2: IMPACTS 100 Chapter 11: MAKING WORK WORK 102 Chapter 12: AI DOOMERS 114 Chapter 13: A DAY IN THE LIFE OF MIDJOURNEY 127 Chapter 14: MEET THE PROMPT ENGINEERS 138 Chapter 15: AI’S ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT 143 Chapter 16: AI ART 152 Chapter 17: MISINFORMATION 167 Chapter 18: DISINFORMATION 179 Chapter 19: PROFIT BEFORE PEOPLE 197 Chapter 20: CODED BIASES 202PART 3: ISSUES 214 Chapter 21: THE HUMAN SIDE OF AI 216 Chapter 22: AI MUSIC, MOVIES AND BOOKS 225 Chapter 23: AI AND LONELINESS 236 Chapter 24: MOATS AND DEFENCES 244 Chapter 25: THE AI FIELD EXPANDS (AND CONTRACTS) 249 Chapter 26: TAMING BIG TECH 257 Chapter 27: OPENAI AT WAR 273 Chapter 28: SOVEREIGN AI 282 Chapter 29: WHERE ARE WE GOING? 288