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  • You Look Like a Thing and I Love You: How Artificial Intelligence Works and Why It's Making the World a Weirder Place by Janelle Shane book cover
  • You Look Like a Thing and I Love You: How Artificial Intelligence Works and Why It's Making the World a Weirder Place by Janelle Shane book cover
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You Look Like a Thing and I Love You: How Artificial Intelligence Works and Why It's Making the World a Weirder Place

by Janelle Shane

A playful introduction to how AI learns—and goes wrong

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Awards & Recognition

  • Critical praise

    Praise from Margaret Harris of Physics World

    Margaret Harris praises the book as an informative and humorous primer on machine learning.

AlbakiReads Editorial

A playful introduction to how AI learns—and goes wrong

Janelle Shane uses deliberately odd AI experiments to make machine learning easier to examine: systems try naming paint colors, inventing recipes and flirting, with results that reveal the gap between a task’s instructions and what a machine actually learns. The book connects these demonstrations to AI’s place in everyday life, from phone unlocking to hospital care, and considers how such systems learn, fail and adapt. Its examples also raise questions about what machine-generated outputs reflect—not only about the technology, but about the human information and patterns on which it depends.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Adults curious about artificial intelligence and machine learning
  • Readers who prefer technical ideas introduced through concrete, humorous examples
  • Those interested in how AI is used in everyday settings

Themes

Artificial intelligence and machine learningHow systems learn and failAI in everyday lifeHuman patterns reflected in technology

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

"A deft, informative, and often screamingly funny primer on the ways that machine learning can (and often does) go wrong." --Margaret Harris, Physics World
"You look like a thing and I love you" is one of the best pickup lines ever...according to an artificial intelligence trained by the scientist Janelle Shane, creator of the popular blog AI Weirdness. Shane creates silly AIs that learn how to name colors of paint, create the best recipes, and even flirt (badly) with humans--all to understand the technology that governs so much of our human lives.
We rely on AI every day, trusting it for matters both big and small, from unlocking our phones to hospital care. But how smart is AI really...? Shane delivers the answer to every AI question you've ever asked, and some you definitely haven't--such as: How can a computer design the perfect sandwich? What does robot-generated Harry Potter fan fiction sound like? And is the world's best Halloween costume really "vampire hog bride"?

In this smart, often hilarious introduction to the most interesting science of our time, Shane shows how these machines learn, fail, and adapt--and how they reflect both the best and worst of humanity.

"I can't think of a better way to learn about artificial intelligence, and I've never had so much fun along the way." --Adam Grant, New York Times bestselling author of Originals
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