AI Leaves The Screen

AI is no longer confined to a screen. It is beginning to diagnose disease, assist surgeons, drive cars and control machines that can move through the physical world.

But what happens when artificial intelligence stops simply giving us answers - and starts affecting what happens around us?

In AI Leaves the Screen, the third book in the AI for Beginners series, Ryan Cottam explores the rapidly developing world of physical and real-world artificial intelligence without the jargon, hype or assumption that you already understand the technology.

Beginning inside a hospital operating theatre, discover how AI is already being used to support doctors and surgeons, analyse medical images, detect disease, speed up stroke treatment, assist drug discovery and even help researchers understand the building blocks of life. The book also examines the difficult questions surrounding medical AI: accuracy, privacy, bias, responsibility and how much trust we should place in a machine when getting the answer wrong really matters.

Then take the technology onto the road.

Learn how driverless cars actually see and understand their surroundings, why genuinely autonomous taxis already operate without anyone behind the wheel, how companies such as Waymo are expanding the technology, and why Britain is preparing for a future in which driverless passenger services could become part of everyday life.

Finally, meet the robots.

From factories and warehouses to increasingly capable humanoid machines, explore how AI is being given cameras, hands, legs and the ability to turn instructions into physical action - along with the enormous challenge of teaching machines something humans take for granted: common sense.

Along the way, AI Leaves the Screen asks some of the biggest questions surrounding the next stage of artificial intelligence:

• Can AI make doctors better without replacing them?
• Could driverless cars eventually become safer than human drivers?
• What happens to work when robots can perform physical tasks?
• Who is responsible when an autonomous machine makes the wrong decision?
• And how close are we really to living alongside intelligent robots?

Written in a clear, conversational style with humour throughout, AI Leaves the Screen separates what is happening now from what might happen next - without turning either into science fiction.

Because artificial intelligence is no longer just learning how to talk.

It is learning how to act.