The creators of artificial genius. About the rebels who endowed Google, Facebook and the whole world with intelligence

The secret history of high technology of our time. What does it mean to be reasonable? Being human? What do we really expect from life and from the intelligence that we possess or that we could create? With the help of exclusive reports and hundreds of interviews, the New York Times journalist from Silicon Valley, Cade Metz, takes the reader to the backstage, hidden from the general public, where you can get answers to many questions. A place where powerful artificial intelligence is being created, which has already become an integral part of big business, social discourse and our daily life — even if we don't notice it. Artificial intelligence has long been considered a question of the distant future, it was dismissed, and only the most fanatical researchers, who were considered cranks and renegades in the scientific community, were seriously engaged in it. But there were two scientists who changed everything. They went to their lofty goals in completely different ways, and very soon their ideas ignited a new type of arms race, which included Google, Microsoft, Facebook and OpenAI, a new research laboratory founded by Elon Musk, one of the lords of Silicon Valley. At the same time, many believe that the Chinese will be the first to cross the finish line. The book vividly describes this dramatic conflict of national, corporate and scientific interests, and also pays a lot of attention to concerns related to confidentiality, security and bias. Like a Victorian-era novel, the author describes an entire world populated by eccentric, incredibly intelligent and unimaginably rich characters, and brings us to the deepest moral dilemmas. As in a good thriller, the amazing facts and story arc raise a fundamental, vital question in the reader's mind: how far will we let this go?