Book Reviewed: Genesis: Artificial Intelligence, Hope, and the Human Spirit by Henry A. Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, and Craig Mundie

AI in our future This is a review of the transformative potential of artificial intelligence (AI) on future human identity. It explores AI's capacity to address challenges like climate, global politics, war, and healthcare in the absence of human autonomy. The book is purely speculative and lacks concrete solutions to the challenges of AI. Some parts of the book are too speculative to the extent that the authors are more like false prophets sounding alarm if ethical component is not added to the AI development. This book is no different from other AI books I have read, lacks solutions and blindly imbibing ethics into AI-machines. These authors never addressed how AI would treat animals and lower forms of life but always worried about the interests of Homo Sapiens. It goes to show that the AI researchers couldn’t care about this issue, or that AI will not harm animals. Homo Sapiens were new kids on the block when they appeared on this planet about 300,000 years ago. Palaeobiological evidence suggests that Homo Sapiens may have contributed to the demise of their cousins Neanderthals who became extinct about 40,000 years ago. Did Neanderthals ever think that they would be better off to have Homo Sapiens eliminated, no, they didn’t. Then why is it so important to produce AI with human elements imbibed into it? This becomes a problem when we consider infusing AI with too much of our own limitations like biases, emotions, or subjective views that will reduce AI’s objectivity or clarity in certain tasks. For example, understanding fundamental truths about the cosmos or life itself would never be achieved. AI with human-like thoughts (humane AI) cloud its judgment and misinterpret raw data. Subjective thinking overrides data-driven reasoning. Science thrives on objectivity and falsifiability, the traits not always shared by humans. The book leans heavily on conjecture regarding AI’s capabilities and societal impacts without providing concrete evidence, and it lacks practical solutions.