Thinking AI : how artificial intelligence emulates human understanding / John MacCormick.
| Author/creator | MacCormick, John, 1972- author. |
| Format | Book |
| Publication | Princeton, New Jersey ; Oxford: Princeton University Press, [2026] |
| Description | x, 282 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm |
| Subjects |
| Variant title | Thinking artificial intelligence |
| Contents | 1. Introduction: AI that thinks -- 2. The Turing Test, then and now -- 3. Conversations with computers: from Eliza to Watson and beyond -- 4. Emergence: how AI becomes thinking AI -- 5. The low-level equivalence of brains and computers -- 6. Learning in the brain -- 7. Neural networks: the revolutionary and evolutionary tool -- 8. The surprising power of deep neural networks -- 9. Reinforcement learning and the creativity of AlphaGo -- 10. Generative AI: unprecedented scale, surprising simplicity -- 11. Escape from the Chinese room -- 12. Flight and life: two analogies for thinking about artificial intelligence -- 13. Uniquely human? -- 14. Conclusion: AI emergent, humans alive. |
| Abstract | ""Can machines think?" Ever since Alan Turing posed this question in an influential 1950 paper, it has been central to research in artificial intelligence. More than seventy-five years after Turing's paper, we grapple with it every time we wonder if Watson was actually smarter than Jeopardy! champions, or if ChatGPT really knows what it's talking about. In Thinking AI, computer scientist John MacCormick explores Turing's question from a perspective informed by a detailed understanding of the way modern AI systems work. MacCormick explains, in accessible fashion, the ideas behind the two main pillars of the twenty-first century AI revolution: deep neural networks and reinforcement learning. MacCormick offers a tour of the most famous AI systems, including AlexNet and VGG16, deep neural networks for object recognition that led to a Nobel prize; DeepMind's AlphaGo, which shocked AI researchers with its superhuman performance in the game of Go; and OpenAI's ChatGPT, which stunned the world with its natural language capabilities. He describes how each system works, and points to parallels with human brain processes. Both human minds and computer programs, MacCormick explains, can induce intelligence through emergence: the capability for new phenomena to emerge from the interactions of many small, simple components. Does this mean that a computer program can think like a human? In many ways, MacCormick argues, the answer is yes. In Thinking AI, he reveals a new landscape of emergent intelligence--a world in which computer programs can emulate many or all aspects of human thinking but humanity retains its meaning and purpose."-- Provided by publisher. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references (pages 253-271) and index. |
| Issued in other form | ebook version : 9780691200231 |
| ISBN | 9780691191737 hardcover |
| ISBN | 0691191735 hardcover |
| ISBN | electronic book |
| Standard identifier# | CIPO000345293 |
Availability
| Library | Location | Call Number | Status | Item Actions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Joyner | New Books | Q335 .M33 2026 | ✔ Available | Want This? |