The Worlds I See by Dr. Fei Fei Li, borrowed from my local library after a two month wait in the queue.
This is a “Moment of Lift” book which supports “publishing original nonfiction by visionaries working to unlock a more equal world for women and girls.” I didn’t know this until I had finished the book, but it surely fits that description.
Dr. Li is the founder of the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI and the book is her story from her childhood in China to her immigration to the US at age 11 to her position at Stanford today.
She is a very good writer and gives enough detail into her personal life to make you appreciate her journey and while doing that, she takes you through her work in AI and discusses who and how the field evolved before it was as widely known as it is today. She discusses the work done by many of the early pioneers of the field and how she and others built on those foundations to bring us to today. She takes us through the “Winter of AI” when nothing worked as desired, labs where small and underfunded yet still attracted top notch talent.
The book works on a couple of levels I didn’t expect, the difficulty of and barriers to assimilation, for example, were enlightening for me. Being an older male, it would have been a book I wish I had found back in 1968, due to how helpful she would be in realizing your potential.
I’ll send a copy of this to both of my granddaughters and recommend it as a good backgrounder on AI and its evolution.
