Books
by Amir_

Artificial intelligence is inescapable: at home, at work, in politics, and on the battlefield. In The Cybernetic Society, technologist Amir Husain argues that AI hasn’t simply encroached on everything we do. It has become part of us, and we, it. Humans and intelligent machines, he argues, are enmeshed in a symbiotic hybrid that he calls a “cybernetic society.”

Husain describes a present and future where AI isn’t a tool of humans but our equal partner, one where they can realize their own visions of the world. There is great potential and danger: Saudi Arabia’s Neom, a “cognitive city” being built in inhospitable desert, shows how this symbiosis can make life possible where otherwise it is not. But the profusion of intelligent military drones is making mass destruction possible where otherwise it is not.

As engrossing as it is urgent, The Cybernetic Society offers a new understanding of this revolutionary fusion of machine and mankind, and its profound implications for all our futures. The path ahead is challenging. But Husain shows why we can live harmoniously with our creations.

Generative AI goes beyond rule-following. It lets computer programs come up with ideas and create. It automates, amplifies and accelerates a great many parts of human work, and tasks that once demanded enormous resources can now be handled with ease.

Amir Husain, best-selling author and founder of a $1.4 billion industrial AI company, explains what leaders need to know to put these systems to work. What can generative AI actually do for your organization? How do you protect your data? Should you run models locally or in the public cloud? What are the ethical, transparency and safety questions, and what about regulation?

Drawing on his experience deploying AI across critical global industries, Husain explains the core principles of generative AI in clear terms and guides CEOs and leaders toward an AI strategy built for their own organizations.

Artificial “machine” intelligence is playing an ever-greater role in our society. We are already using cruise control in our cars, automatic checkout at the drugstore, and are unable to live without our smartphones. The discussion around AI is polarized; people think either machines will solve all problems for everyone, or they will lead us down a dark, dystopian path into total human irrelevance.

Regardless of what you believe, the idea that we might bring forth intelligent creation can be intrinsically frightening. But what if our greatest role as humans so far is that of creators? Amir Husain, inventor and computer scientist, argues that we are on the cusp of writing our next, and greatest, creation myth. It is the dawn of a new form of intellectual diversity, one that we need to embrace in order to advance the state of the art in many critical fields, including security, resource management, finance, and energy.

He addresses broad existential questions surrounding the coming of AI: Why are we valuable? What can we create in this world? How are we intelligent? What constitutes progress for us? And how might we fail to progress?