The Shortcut: Why Intelligent Machines Do Not Think Like Us

An influential scientist in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) explains its fundamental concepts and how it is changing culture and society.

A particular form of AI is now embedded in our tech, our infrastructure, and our lives. How did it get there? Where and why should we be concerned? And what should we do now? The Shortcut: Why Intelligent Machines Do Not Think Like Us provides an accessible yet probing exposure of AI in its prevalent form today, proposing a new narrative to connect and make sense of events that have happened in the recent tumultuous past, and enabling us to think soberly about the road ahead.

This book is divided into ten carefully crafted and easily digestible chapters. Each chapter grapples with an important question for AI. Ranging from the scientific concepts that underpin the technology to wider implications for society, it develops a unified description using tools from different disciplines and avoiding unnecessary abstractions or words that end with -ism. The book uses real examples wherever possible, introducing the reader to the people who have created some of these technologies and to ideas shaping modern society that originate from the technical side of AI. It contains important practical advice about how we should approach AI in the future without promoting exaggerated hypes or fears.

Entertaining and disturbing but always thoughtful, The Shortcut confronts the hidden logic of AI while preserving a space for human dignity. It is essential reading for anyone with an interest in AI, the history of technology, and the history of ideas. General readers will come away much more informed about how AI really works today and what we should do next.

在人工智慧（AI）領域中具有影響力的科學家解釋了其基本概念以及它如何改變文化和社會。一種特定形式的AI現在嵌入在我們的技術、基礎設施和生活中。它是如何到達那裡的？我們應該在哪裡和為什麼擔心？現在我們應該做什麼？《智能機器為什麼不像我們一樣思考》提供了一種易於理解但深入探索的AI介紹，以連接和理解最近動盪過去發生的事件，並使我們冷靜地思考未來的道路。

這本書分為十個精心製作且易於理解的章節。每個章節都探討了AI的一個重要問題。從支撐技術的科學概念到對社會的廣泛影響，它使用不同學科的工具發展出一個統一的描述，避免不必要的抽象或以-ism結尾的詞語。該書在可能的情況下使用真實的例子，介紹了創造這些技術的人們以及源於AI技術方面的塑造現代社會的思想。它包含了重要的實用建議，關於我們應該如何在未來應對AI，而不是宣揚誇大的炒作或恐懼。

《智能機器為什麼不像我們一樣思考》既有趣又令人不安，但始終思考周到，它揭示了AI的隱藏邏輯，同時保留了人類尊嚴的空間。這是任何對AI、技術史和思想史感興趣的人必讀之書。一般讀者將對今天AI的真實運作方式以及我們應該下一步該做什麼有更多了解。

Nello Cristianini has been an influential researcher in the field of machine learning and AI for over 20 years. He is Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Bath, before that he has worked at the University of Bristol, the University of California (Davis), the University of London (Royal Holloway). For his work in machine learning, he has been a past recipient of the Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award, and of the ERC Advanced Grant. Cristianini has been the co-author of influential books in machine learning, as well as dozens of academic articles, published in journals that range from AI to the philosophy of science, from the digital humanities to natural language processing, and from sociology to biology. In 2017, he delivered the annual STOA lecture at the European Parliament on the topic of the social impact of AI, a theme that he is still actively investigating. Cristianini has a degree in Physics from the University of Trieste, an MSc in Computational Intelligence from the University of London, and a PhD from the University of Bristol.

Nello Cristianini在機器學習和人工智慧領域有超過20年的影響力。他是巴斯大學的人工智慧教授，之前曾在布里斯托大學、加州大學戴維斯分校和倫敦大學皇家霍洛威學院工作。他因在機器學習領域的工作而獲得過皇家學會Wolfson研究優秀獎和ERC高級研究獎助金。Cristianini是機器學習領域有影響力的書籍的合著者，並發表了數十篇學術文章，發表在從人工智慧到科學哲學、數位人文學到自然語言處理、社會學到生物學等各種期刊上。2017年，他在歐洲議會發表了關於人工智慧社會影響的年度STOA演講，這是他目前仍在積極研究的主題。Cristianini擁有意大利的特里埃斯特大學物理學學士學位，倫敦大學的計算智能碩士學位，以及布里斯托大學的博士學位。