“A groundbreaking look at how AI is not just revolutionizing technology but revealing the fundamentally computational nature of intelligence and life itself. Essential reading for understanding ourselves and our future.”
—Reid Hoffman, author of Blitzscaling; cofounder and Executive Chairman of Inflection AI; cofounder and Executive Chairman of LinkedIn
“Telling a good story is a gift. Telling a gripping story that draws on a deep and joyous knowledge of diverse sciences is a rare gift. Blaise is graced with that godsend, along with an unerring knack for pulling simplicity out of complexity without dumbing down. All the while, he looks very broadly at diverse cultures, the arts, and history. Our very own Renaissance man, Blaise Agüera y Arcas has given us a masterpiece.”
—Patricia Churchland, Distinguished Professor Emerita of Philosophy at the University of California, San Diego; author of Neurophilosophy and Conscience
“Highly recommend this beautiful book! A fantastic synthesis to several related areas spanning artificial life, chaos, evolution, and cybernetics to modern machine learning, and how it all relates to the core fundamental question: What is intelligence?”
—David Ha, cofounder of Sakana.ai, Japan’s leading AI company
“There is hardly a more exciting, timely, or impactful question than the nature of intelligence in its diverse manifestations. Blaise Agüera y Arcas is the guide you want to the rich, disruptive lessons that AI is teaching us about our own embodied intelligence and the space of other possible minds. This book offers a remarkable journey, written by a leading figure in the information sciences, through the labyrinth of ideas around knowledge, computation, understanding, decision-making, and agents who matter. It is full of unique insights into not just computing but the evolution of life on Earth, technology as a whole, and cognition—present and future. It reads like a classic, belonging with the works of Hofstadter, Davies, and others who have synthesized huge bodies of interdisciplinary thought toward a coherent, deep, and novel vision of an incredibly exciting future.”
—Michael Levin, Vannevar Bush Distinguished Professor at Tufts University
“An extraordinary tour de force—this book is an expansive, entertaining, and wonderfully provocative journey through the science and philosophy of life, intelligence, and the ever-shifting boundaries between humans and machines.”
—Melanie Mitchell, AI authority and Professor at the Santa Fe Institute
“Few thinkers on technology exhibit the intellectual rigor of Blaise Agüera y Arcas. His book on intelligence is essential reading, compelling us to rethink its very essence and pushing the boundaries of our understanding of evolution.”
—Cedric O, Former Minister of State for Digital Affairs of France; cofounder of Mistral and The Marshmallow Project
“What Is Intelligence? is a bold exploration of life and intelligence that transcends traditional beliefs. Agüera y Arcas illuminates our new computational companions from many directions. You will also be delighted by his insightful wit.”
—Terrence J. Sejnowski, AI pioneer and Francis Crick Professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies
“A manifesto on techno-optimism, a treatise on the material meaning of life, and a monograph on analytical engines—the universe as conceived by the big solid-state dream machine. All in a polemical book full of obscenities. What more could one want?”
—David Krakauer, President of the Santa Fe Institute
