The Non-Obvious Book of the Week: Smarter Than You Think by Clive Thompson

“Tools for thinking help make people smarter. But they don’t necessarily make them morally better. So what happens when you take brutal rulers and give them technology that makes them smarter and more efficient? They become better at doing evil.”

How will we evolve with the tools that we are given to make both ourselves and the tools better rather than worse? This is the question at the heart of this book from popular tech journalist Clive Thompson. The book has become a sort of modern classic for the utopian idea of how technology can actually make a better world and improve humanity since it was first published just over a decade ago.

While AI was not top of mind at that time, and therefore features only minimally in the book, the fundamental idea of thinking tools and technology getting as smart as (and quickly surpassing us) is something we were already seeing early signs of even back in 2013. Through his exploration of how technology comes up with seemingly non-sensical answers to what happens when we are clearly slower and less suited to doing certain types of thinking— this is a book that will get you thinking about the relationship between us and machines … and what it should be in the future.

One of the more thought-provoking questions comes near the end, as he concludes the book with this suggestion: “How should you respond when you get powerful new tools for finding answers? Think of harder questions.”

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About the Non-Obvious Book Selection of the Week:

Every week I feature a new “non-obvious” book selection worth sharing. Titles featured here may be new or from the backlist, but the date of publication doesn’t really matter. My goal is to elevate great books that perhaps deserve a second look which you might have otherwise missed.