NOW IN PAPERBACK: New York Times Silicon Valley beat reporter Cade Metz's insider perspective on the greatest tech story of our time-a story that no one else has been in a position to tellWhat does it mean to be smart? To be human? What do we really want from life and the intelligence we have or might create?Long dismissed as unattainable, artificial intelligence was, for decades, ignored by the big tech giants and universities. The small community of AI researchers worked on the fringes of the scientific community. Then, in 2008, two chance meetings changed everything. The first was between a university researcher and a Microsoft programmer. The second was at Google, where another academic convinced a Google exec to pay closer attention. Within months both realized the same thing: AI-real artificial intelligence-was far closer than they realized. The first company to achieve full AI would dominate the next several decades of tech. The race was on.Google immediately launched an in-house AI lab. They also went after the few AI researchers, both in academia and those running startups. Microsoft did the same but stumbled due to their bureaucracy. Facebook took notice and quickly poached Microsoft's team. Then Elon Musk jumped in and founded OpenAI, stealing talent from both Google and Facebook. The tech battle grew to include China and Russia with terrifying potential consequences.Metz's epic story dramatically presents the fierce competition among national interests, shareholder value, the pursuit of scientific knowledge, and the very human concerns about privacy, security, bias, and prejudice. This technology is already guiding our leisure time, our retail choices, our cars, our factories, our markets, and our military weapons. How far will we let it go?

NEW YORK TIMES SUPPORT: Cade Metz got nice support from his editors and colleagues at NYT for the hardcover which will continue for the paperback. Before NYT, Cade was on this beat for Wired and he remains arguably the most respected Silicon Valley tech journalist working today.THE DEFINITIVE STORY BEHIND THE CONSTANT FLOW OF HEADLINES: Metz roots his story in forgotten research that began in the 1950s, and he's been reporting the rise of AI for so long he has been able to draw on sources he's had for over a decade. No other book can match his access to today's tech titans and instant multimillionaire researchers alongside his deep knowledge of where the ideas came from.SIZZLING NARRATIVE AND CHARACTERS: Metz frames the story of AI around the eccentric geniuses and innocents who shaped this technology: The Man Who Couldn't Sit Down (literally); The Chess Master Who Built a Machine to Beat a Go Master; The Woman Google Called a Gorilla; The Devil Who Brought Down AI Winter; The Engineer Whose PIN Is The Last 4 Digits of Pi….