• The best books on Artificial Intelligence - Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach by Peter Norvig & Stuart Russell
  • The best books on Artificial Intelligence - Deep Learning (Adaptive Computation and Machine Learning series) by Aaron Courville, Ian Goodfellow & Yoshua Bengio
  • The best books on Artificial Intelligence - The Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World by Pedro Domingos
  • The best books on Artificial Intelligence - Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies by Nick Bostrom
  • The best books on Artificial Intelligence - Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

The best books on Artificial Intelligence, recommended by ChatGPT

Normally at Five Books we ask experts to recommend the best books in their field and talk to us about them in an interview, either in person, by phone or via Zoom. After a busy end-of-year, our human beings needed a few days off. Instead, we decided to ask the AI bot, ChatGPT, to recommend books to us on the topic of AI. Being an AI doesn’t necessarily make the chatbot an expert on AI books, but we thought it might have some ideas. Do not fear, next week we’ll be back with real human beings (unless readers feel the AI did a better job, in which case we’re happy to step aside).

  • The best books on Digital Ethics - Zed: A Novel by Joanna Kavenna
  • The best books on Digital Ethics - Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy by Cathy O'Neil
  • The best books on Digital Ethics - Mindf*ck: Inside Cambridge Analytica’s Plot to Break the World by Christopher Wylie
  • The best books on Digital Ethics - Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism by Safiya Umoja Noble
  • The best books on Digital Ethics - AI Ethics by Mark Coeckelbergh

The best books on Digital Ethics, recommended by Carissa Véliz

Philosophers have a lot to add to debates about digital technology and the moral issues raised by its rapid rise, argues Carissa Véliz, a professor at the University of Oxford’s Institute for Ethics in AI. Here she talks us through books for the general reader that introduce some of the challenges of digital ethics, from concerns about privacy and bias to the threat to democracy and the future of humanity.  

  • The best books on Digital Africa - Invisible Users: Youth in the Internet Cafés of Urban Ghana by Jenna Burrell
  • The best books on Digital Africa - Digital Entrepreneurship in Africa: How a Continent Is Escaping Silicon Valley's Long Shadow by Mark Graham, Michel Wahome & Nicholas Friederici
  • The best books on Digital Africa - China Africa and the Future of the Internet by Iginio Gagliardone
  • The best books on Digital Africa - Digital Democracy, Analogue Politics: How the Internet Era is Transforming Politics in Kenya by Nanjala Nyabola
  • The best books on Digital Africa - Africa's Information Revolution by James Murphy & Padraig Carmody

The best books on Digital Africa, recommended by Mohammad Amir Anwar

The internet and digital technology are transforming not only the way African countries trade and conduct business but also how they cohere socially and politically. Mohammad Amir Anwar, Lecturer in African Studies and International Development at the University of Edinburgh, recommends books that investigate the opportunities for Africa from the growth of technology—but focus on specifics and avoid the hype.

  • The best books on Cryptocurrency - The Age of Cryptocurrency: How Bitcoin and Digital Money Are Challenging the Global Economic Order by Michael Casey & Paul Vigna
  • The best books on Cryptocurrency - Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency by Finn Brunton
  • The best books on Cryptocurrency - A History of Money by Glyn Davies
  • The best books on Cryptocurrency - Paid: Tales of Dongles, Checks, and Other Money Stuff Bill Maurer and Lana Swartz (eds)
  • The best books on Cryptocurrency - The Basics of Bitcoins and Blockchains by Antony Lewis

The best books on Cryptocurrency, recommended by David Birch

Proselytes for cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin extol them as a liberation technology to free us from big government. Sceptics insist that while they have been the source of useful technologies, as units of value, account and exchange, they will remain marginal. Here, digital currency expert David Birch chooses five books to help you understand the utopian roots of cryptocurrencies, the technology behind how they work, their functions and uses, and their broader place in the long history of money.

  • How To Use Technology And Not Be Used By It: A Psychologist’s Reading List - The Saturated Self by Kenneth Gergen
  • How To Use Technology And Not Be Used By It: A Psychologist’s Reading List - The Stories We Live By by Dan MacAdams
  • How To Use Technology And Not Be Used By It: A Psychologist’s Reading List - How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett
  • How To Use Technology And Not Be Used By It: A Psychologist’s Reading List - Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection by John T. Cacioppo & William Patrick
  • How To Use Technology And Not Be Used By It: A Psychologist’s Reading List - Evocative Objects: Things We Think With by Sherry Turkle

How To Use Technology And Not Be Used By It: A Psychologist’s Reading List, recommended by Margaret Morris

Many people are now worried about the impact of tech devices and social media on our brains—and believe they could be harmful to our psychological wellbeing. Psychologist Margaret Morris, author of Left to Our Own Devices, argues for a more nuanced approach and talks us through the books that shaped her own approach to technology.

  • The best books on Blockchain - The Basics of Bitcoins and Blockchains by Antony Lewis
  • The best books on Blockchain - The Truth Machine: The Blockchain and the Future of Everything Michael Casey and Paul Vigna
  • The best books on Blockchain - Radical Technologies: The Design of Everyday Life by Adam Greenfield
  • The best books on Blockchain - Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain: Bitcoin, Blockchain, Ethereum & Smart Contracts by David Gerard
  • The best books on Blockchain - Blockchain and the Law: The Rule of Code by Aaron Wright & Primavera De Filippi

The best books on Blockchain, recommended by Kevin Werbach

In an age when trust in banks and other traditional institutions has been undermined and all our personal data is in the hands of the new tech giants, can blockchain help us take back control and restore trust? Or is it just a tool for financial speculation and illegal activities? Wharton professor and author Kevin Werbach recommends books to get your head around the basics of ‘blockchain.’