Book Review: Superagency | Reid Hoffman & Greg Beato
What Could Possibly Go Right With Our AI Future
Amazon: Superagency: What Could Possibly Go Right with Our AI Future
Rating: 3.5 stars
What was it about
Superagency offers a roadmap for using AI inclusively and adaptively to improve our lives and create positive change. While acknowledging challenges like disinformation and potential job changes, the book focuses on AI’s immense potential to increase individual agency and create better outcomes for society as a whole.
Superagency challenges conventional fears, inviting us to view the future through a lens of opportunity, rather than fear. It’s a call to action – to embrace AI with excitement and actively shape a world where human ingenuity and the power of AI combine to create something extraordinary.
As a techno-optimist I had came across this book via a talk by Reid Hoffman on this video “The Futurist: Superagency” with Washington Post Live.
As we face a lot of fear around AI, I was looking for arguments to reframe the conversations rooted in fear.
What I liked
The book did not disappoint.
Historical context
I enjoyed the historical context of the previous technological revolutions.
All the way from independent textile mills to loom powered factories, first cars, early days of computers, Internet, space exploration, and other technologies that have shaped humanity.
Reminds us that we’ve been here before. Human ingenuity has always found a way to thrive.
Empowerment over fear
The call to approach AI with curiosity resonates well with my thinking.
It challenges us to move from a position of helplessness to one of exploration and possibility.
What I didn’t get out of it
The title misled me to believe this book to contain more technical background of what “Superagency” means or could mean in the near future.
This was more of a philosophical and overwhelmingly positive take. To be fair, it was interweaved with words of caution. Could have a used some rality check on the dangers as well.
Rating: 3.5 stars