As someone who does programs trying to explain AI to seniors, I found this book great in explaining things in a way that made it easier to understand. It was also funny at points and very interesting, to say the least. I definitely learned things I didn't know about AI just from researching using Google.

This book proved to be an eye opening, informative and resourceful read in relation to the advances of Artificial Intelligence and its overall benefit and detriment to modern society as a whole along with its potential uses in the future.
In terms of the content, I felt that the book was well researched and descriptive although I wasn't a big fan of the jokes throughout the book (most of which felt contrived and almost like it was written by an actual robot).
Secondly, I also felt the charts describing the various AI terms and their overall meaning was a clever addition to the book- enhancing my reading experience.
Thankyou to both Lyra Press as well as Net galley for the ARC of this book.

This book is informative—but it reads as if the author realized that stupid AI stories weren’t as funny as expected, so she used AI to generate silly similes to insert into every paragraph. For example: “Forget those pesky human doctors with their years of training and actual empathy—we’ve got algorithms that can spot tumors with the speed and precision of a radiologist who’s been intravenously fed triple-shot cappuccinos. [One company], for instance, is turning brain scans into a game of ‘Where’s Waldo?’ but instead of finding a guy in a striped shirt, it’s hunting down tumors with the enthusiasm of a turbocharged bloodhound at a sausage factory.” (There are four references to “Where’s Waldo?” in this relatively short book.)

This tone was fine for the first chapter or two—but it soon became tiresome, and then really annoying. The humor is amateurish, repetitive, and ultimately detracts from the usefulness of the book.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

The book has several very strong points. It definitely gives a blunt and humorous view of AI while still giving AI credit if and when it works well. The explanations of AI are very good and the glossary is a must-read. I found a lot of the wording clever and the illustrations beautiful. In an era of expanding AI in daily life, I found this book very useful. Thank you to Netgalley and Lyra Press for the advance reader copy.

This is about artificial intelliegence, how it works, and all of its pitfalls and failures (as well as its successes).

I’ve read various books about AI before and let’s just say that thanks to that I didn’t go into this book with very high expectations. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked this book however. I had a mostly good time reading it.

The books covers a wide variety of topics related to AI. It covered most topics fairly well and I can tell a lot of research went into them. The bits where the science behind each use of AI was explained was particularly interesting to me.

I would have to say my main complaint is the humor of the book but that’s definitely a person issue. There are tons of jokes sprinkled throughout the book and it didn’t jive with me. I assume that if the humor matches with yours you’ll have a much better time with this. The books covers is very heavy with analogies/comparisons. I can see that they are there to help people understand the given material but it really gets old after a while.


Overall I really liked this. Recommend to any reader interested in technology in general and AI in specific.

(End note, I tried to rate and review this on Goodreads but the entry doesn’t seem to exist? Will try again in the future.)

A fun collection of anecdotes and real-life A.I. blunders. Some small and innocent, some not so small nor innocent! Book was well organized into areas where we experience A.I. (finance, healthcare, driving, etc.)

I'm not sure about the "hilarious truth" about A.I. The stories are peppered with jokes, but the jokes themselves seem like they were written by A.I. (a bit forced and cheesy.) In fact, I wouldn't be shocked if large chunks of this book were generated by ChatGPT or other A.I. tool.

Regardless, the book highlights A.I. issues that seem to make us all a bit dumber. If A.I. itself is telling that story, I guess it's a bit fitting!