Artificial intelligence (AI) consists of a dazzling set of computational tools that few fully understand. From our cars to our homes to how we socialize and work, AI is everywhere and makes life so much better. It might irritate in some instances but mostly it helps. Or it seems to.
Yet AI developers have an unusually narrow perspective on intelligence, reducing all judgments to a calculus. Machines excel at this form of intelligence, but it is not how most people define the word. While this narrowing has provided useful direction for the development of computers, Richard Harper argues, it also constrains what people are capable of. When we reach for AI to help us unwind, connect with others, or even create art, it’s not analytical intelligence that we are after. The human behaviours that AI seeks to supplement are shaped as much by mood, morals, indolence, and interrelation as they are by calculation. Drawing on three decades of inquiry, Harper reveals that when we are misled about what AI cannot do, we fail to see what it can.
The Shape of Thought shows how to break free from this narrow view. By better understanding the many different things that people achieve with computers, we can improve and diversify AI to allow for richer, more beneficial human-computer interaction.
Editorial Reviews
Review
‘This book will be welcomed by anyone concerned or surprised that the definition of intelligence seems to be changing. Richard Harper is a wise and reassuring guide, placing recent anxieties over AI in the context of decades of technical change. The Shape of Thought cements his reputation as one of the leading philosophers helping us to understand everyday technologies, now and for the future.’ Alan Blackwell, University of Cambridge
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The Shape of Thought is an excellent and powerful work. Harper tackles human-AI interaction from a conceptual, practical, and historical perspective, always with a sharp focus on the human use and experience of technology.’ Margot Brereton, Queensland University of Technology
‘This outstanding book is compelling in its technical and intellectual sophistication while maintaining an impressive readability.’ Jeffrey Bardzell, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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The Shape of Thought: Reasoning in the Age of AI is not just a critique of the present; it is a roadmap for how the next generation of AI systems might be conceived—grounded, contextual, and aligned with the realities of human thought rather than abstract fantasies of machine intelligence.” Unite AI
Book Description
What the future of AI might look like, if we can see beyond the algorithm.
About the Author
Richard H.R. Harper is director of the Centre for Material Social Futures at Lancaster University, visiting professor in the College of Science at the University of Swansea, and the author of several award-winning books carefully examining the impact of different types of computing on society.
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