An Amazing Book
My old friend Larry in California just gave me his high recommendation for the this amazing book. It is one of the best explainers of complicated subjects I’ve ever seen. Using the right amount of information, given out in small morsels with beautiful, simple charts and graphs. And, here in just its few pages, explaining the concept of AI far better than I ever imagined it could be explained.
Larry should know. He just completed work at UC Berkeley and USC in AI. I listen to him on these things. I’ve been an Apple and Mac guy all my life so that’s the particular “bubble” I’ve been living in. Larry has too. He was one of the original member of the early, famous connected group on the young Internet call the Well in the San Francisco Bay Area if the 70s and 80s. This book has much of the spirit of the old Well in sharing information among members.
The book is published by the Penguin Random House in their DK imprint. Interestingly, there are is no author on the front of the book and only three people listed at the front of the book: the Consultant of Hilary Lamb, Editorial Consultant Joe Levy and and Contributor Dr. Claire Quigley. DK has got it so right with this book under their “Facts Made Fast” as a sub-imprint. Less text, in an easy-to-read Helvetica typestyle, wonderful illustrations and charts that shows what content has said.
It’s incredible book I believe. Really carrying on the work and legacy of the great Edward Tufte and his legendary The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. All the attempts to translate numbers into images needs to really start with Tufte. I think the DK imprint does a brilliant job in this second edition of their first edition called Simply Artificial Intelligence. It does a great service of reviving the philosophy and concepts of Tufte (and the Well in the Bay Area for that matter) to attention today.
I would recommend high school and college teachers examine this short little intro to AI. Don’t know what AI thinks of the book but I’m sure someone will ask it this question.
See it on Amazon.