The New Fire: War, Peace, and Democracy in the Age of AI

“The New Fire is an essential guide to the age of artificial intelligence written by two of its leading scholars. Ben Buchanan and Andrew Imbrie help the reader understand the incredible promises and daunting perils of AI, while exploring the dramatic impact it could have on geopolitics in the decades ahead.” —Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright “The New Fire provides a brilliant, exceedingly readable examination of the impact of artificial intelligence on all imaginable endeavors from war and peace to politics. It is equal parts highly informative, wonderfully descriptive, and more than a bit terrifying!”—General David Petraeus, US Army (Ret.); former Commander of the Surge in Iraq, US Central Command, and Coalition and US Forces in Afghanistan; former Director, CIA “Buchanan and Imbrie have created a highly readable walk through the history of machine learning and AI, using many original interviews to show us the personalities who made their mark in the field. Importantly, the book focuses as powerfully on the hope that AI brings to humanity as it does on fear—too often the dominant theme in this age of AI.”—Rose Gottemoeller, Steven Házy Lecturer, Freeman-Spogli Institute, Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University “Mixing technical depth, history, ethical philosophy, and penetrant analysis, Buchanan and Imbrie offer a comprehensive perspective on the promise and perils of machine learning and artificial intelligence.”—Vint Cerf, Internet Pioneer