Scary smart, why we are all Jonathan and Marta Kent (raising Superman)

Mo Gawdat has form. He is awesome. His book “Solve for happy” is superb. He just published “Scary Smart: The Future of Artificial Intelligence and How You Can Save Our World”. I usually read about six business books simultaneously, but I finished this book in one fell swoop. The book is a fantastic journey through the dangers of AI and how fundamental principles from Eastern philosophy will save the world. The book also explains why we will not have a choice but to adopt those principles.

The false promise

Why have we ever believed in the false promise of technology? How we click and browse, subscribe and share all the tech that keeps getting fed down our throats when, in reality, tech has never, ever fulfilled its promise. Where is the utopia that tech was supposed to bring to our civilisation when we are on the brink of a dystopia of climate change and the mass extinction of all that we know to be beautiful and precious?

The book in short

AI is inevitable. AI is not a tool. AI is an intelligent being like you and me. The decision algorithms of AI are not based on coding but are on the data we feed them. The current data (greed, war, hunger, conflict, despair) we feed AI will create a monster. If you’ve ever had to deal with an angry teenager, you…