AI Superpowers by Kai-Fu Lee

AI SUPERPOWERS by Kai-Fu Lee is a commentary on the competition between America and China to dominate the field of artificial intelligence. Lee, a former president of Google China, is a well-regarded expert in this area and he argues that four main building blocks are required for creating an AI Superpower in the 21st century: “abundant data, tenacious entrepreneurs, well-trained AI scientists, and a supportive policy environment.”  He begins with references to this competition as the new space race, noting China’s “Sputnik moment” when an Western algorithm beat the world’s best player of Go. Subsequent sections speculate on the economic impact of AI and discuss how “the real action today is with the tinkerers,” i.e., the many scientists and implementers of AI theory.

In his introduction, Lee says, “My hope is that this book sheds some light in how we got here, and also inspires new conversations about where we go from here.” Certainly, I could see many connections for our students, particularly ones researching this topic for Junior Theme and those in business classes.  Lee’s comments about street smart and ruthless entrepreneurs prompted me to think of a number of questions about AI ethics in the future, not unlike some voiced recently in “Internet Hacking is about to get Much Worse” from The New York Times or “Will Governments Turn our Smart Devices into a Massive Surveillance Network?” from Forbes.  Look for a copy of AI SUPERPOWERS on our shelves soon. 

What School Could Be by Ted Dintersmith

WHAT SCHOOL COULD BE is a brand new non-fiction book by Ted Dintersmith which he opens with a quote from John Dewey: “If we teach today’s students as we taught yesterday’s, we rob them of tomorrow.”  

Although I did not really care for Most Likely to Succeed which Dintersmith co-wrote with Tony Wagner, his newer title (subtitled “Insights and Inspiration from Teachers across America”) seems a little more grounded in how to prepare students for this innovation era.  That’s because Dintersmith spent the entire 2015-2016 school year traveling to and observing schools in all 50 states.  [As an aside, he provides a map in his prologue and it appears that he visited mainly major metropolitan areas. Not many small towns or rural areas are identified, even though he notes the national proportion of public high school students is roughly 4.5 million urban, 8 million suburban and 3.5 million rural.] He argues that students thrive in environments where they develop the PEAK principles: Purpose – attacking important challenges; Essentials – acquiring innovative skills; Agency – self-directing learning; Knowledge – retaining so as to make, create and teach others. His final section says Americans long for a speech that notes, “We need to understand how our world is being shaped by innovation, automation, and machine intelligence. Low-skilled jobs aren’t going to Mexico, China or immigrants – they’re just plain going away.” Dintersmith asks readers to “consider the possibility that our innovative teachers, not data-driven policies, can best lead the way.”  He also notes that superintendents stress the importance of “the right school board.” 

One section of WHAT SCHOOL COULD BE deals with the Ivory Tower where he opines that the college model is broken and another discusses Social Equity where he bemoans the dire consequences of unequal education. Once again he makes many claims in this text, but offers limited research and evidence to support them (the notes consist of 15 URLs). In addition, I was a little surprised that his final reflections section – meant to include “pragmatic advice about steps a school community can take to transform learning” – highlights “remarkable innovation” in Kentucky and Oklahoma, two states where teacher strikes are currently much in the news.

You can judge for yourself about Dintersmith, his observations, and his conclusion because he will be speaking at New Trier’s Cornog Auditorium on the Northfield Campus (7 Happ Road) on Thursday evening, April 12 at 7:00pm.  More information is available through the FAN (FamilyAction Network) web site.

Sourdough by Robin Sloan

SOURDOUGH by Robin Sloan is surprisingly one of my favorite reads of the summer. It’s about an overworked young programmer, Lois, who finds her passion – baking bread - and transforms her life and the life of others. SOURDOUGH is slow at times, but it has stayed with me due primarily to its endearing protagonist and its many humorous elements.  Initially, Lois has little life outside of working at General Dexterity in the Bay Area.  Her poor sleeping and eating habits gradually improve due to a mysterious local take-out’s soup and bread.  Sadly, the chef and his deliveryman brother run into visa issues and leave their “number one eater” (Lois) a yeasty sourdough starter and special ethnic music. Lois soon learns to bake bread, construct an oven, and even experiments with programming a robot to break eggs. This is a fun read about the possibility of following your dreams (even if you do not realize that is happening) from Robin Sloan, the author of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, an Alex Award winner.

A very interesting juxtaposition would be to have a group read the fictional SOURDOUGH (featuring its robot character and almost magical biological substance) and also LIFE 3.0 by Max Tegmark which is non-fiction, dealing with the dangers of super intelligence and AI. 

Tegmark, a professor of physics at MIT, argues that the most important conversation of our time is about the future of AI and he quotes numerous experts in his text.  Tegmark also makes good use of charts and visuals to explain his thinking, saying “the goal of the book is to help you join this conversation.”  There is quite a bit of background material to sift through, however, and his explanations were sometimes quite dry or even a bit condescending given the topic. A review in August 29th’s Wall Street Journal notes that LIFE 3.0 is likely to be controversial, with the bulk devoted to “how things could go wrong.” I agree that this is an extremely important issue, but it is a little unclear who Tegmark’s target audience is for this disturbing forecast.

Honestly, I felt that SOURDOUGH opened my mind more to the possibility of using robots and made me feel genuinely excited about the near-term future. I also want to learn more about Vivek Wadhwa and his book, The Driver in the Driverless Car, just featured on the PBS NewsHour.