Artificial intelligence (AI) represents the third age of computing development. But, according to Amy Webb, AI’s subtlety makes it insidious. Released in early March, Webb’s book The Big Nine: How the Tech Titans & Their Thinking Machines Could Warp Humanity raises and attempts to answer the most profound questions posed by AI. Webb warns of a dark future if we fail to reckon with the social, political, and economic changes resulting from AI, as well as China’s determination to establish preeminence in it.

Webb has poured a lifetime of researching, writing, and conversing—in a word, thinking—into her masterwork. The Acknowledgements section, where she describes her mentors, conversation partners, and sundry other sources, reveals the breadth of her connections: She has worked for industry; consulted with military and intelligence sources; lived and studied in the United States, Japan, and China; taught at New York University’s Stern School of Business; and lectured widely. But it is her curiosity and courage to face hard problems that distinguishes her work from the growing stack of other books analyzing AI.

Webb is a first-rate storyteller. From her debut book, Data, A Love Story: How I Cracked the Online Dating Code to Meet My Match, Webb has demonstrated engaging humor and erudition. She is self-effacing, but there is no doubting her technical chops. The detail throughout the book is impressive, but not overwhelming. Her TedSalon talk “How I hacked online dating” is laugh-out-loud funny but bristles with intelligence and creativity; those same strengths elevate The Big Nine.

Webb proves herself a first-rate futurist, which her book prior to this one The Signals Are Talking had suggested. Both a professor of strategic foresight at NYU’s Stern School of Business and the founder of the Future Today Institute, a “leading foresight and strategy firm that helps leaders and their organizations prepare for complex futures,” Webb describes the history and development of futurist forecasting In The Big Nine.

Webb attempts to navigate between popular science and deep science. To tell her story, she needs her lay readers to understand AI; however, since the goal of the book is to describe the risks of ungoverned AI and to provoke policy makers to take action, Webb must also engage already well-informed readers, to convince them of the importance of AI and the dangers and perils that await us all if the problem is ignored.

Therein lies one of the principal shortcomings of the book. Readers with only marginal familiarity with the state of AI development will benefit significantly from the first of the three parts of the book. Part I thoroughly analyzes the history of AI. Webb artful selects examples to orient her readers with a limited understanding of AI and allow them to sufficiently comprehend the foundational elements of her argument. For the reader with a modest command of AI and high tech, the section is well-written, but it provides little new information. The discussion of the “Big Nine”—nine large tech companies that, according to Webb, control the development of AI—follow a similar roadmap. For those who don’t follow business news, this section provides background on the entrenched corporations and academic institutions that “rule” AI. In focusing on the six American companies: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, IBM, and Microsoft (the “G-MAFIA”), Webb competently summarizes the familiar news stories that have inundated the tech media coverage for the past few years, yet the section takes no further steps to uncover a nuanced perspective of these stories. As such, this section provides little to those readers with even a modest background in business news.

The three Chinese tech titans Aliaba, Baidu, and Tencent are less known to American readers, and Webb details their efforts engagingly. She weaves information about China’s government support for AI throughout the stories, which is critical to her thesis.

Background accomplished, in Part II of the book Webb uses her skills as a futurist to chart three “plausible futures over the next 50 years.” The three scenarios “range from optimistic to pragmatic to catastrophic.” She intends to reveal the opportunity—and the risk—as we move toward artificial superintelligence. Webb uses the approach developed by Herman Kahn, a 1950s futurist at RAND Corporation who studied nuclear warfare, whereby she provides a range of plausible scenarios that might occur in the next 50 years. In the optimistic scenario, we make vast changes by injecting humanity into AI. This is done by adopting a strategy to direct and control AI’s progress. The world she envisions looks similar to our world now, but with more helpful computers. In the pragmatic scenario, we make minor tweaks to AI’s development track. As a result, we continue to minimize or ignore the looming risk from China’s plans. In her pessimistic scenario, we do nothing to change our current course. From this, superintelligence (that is, AI much more apt than humans and constantly improving) develops unchecked, and China eventually and irredeemably rules the world. We note this section resembles a Sino-themed dystopian novel.

In Part III of the book, Webb lays out her vision for how we might ameliorate the adverse effects of AI (particularly as it becomes increasingly sophisticated) and counter China’s ambitions for global dominance. Her suggestions, such as creating a Global Alliance on Intelligence Augmentation, treating AI as a public good, and changing the structure of western governments, are not objectionable, but without some compelling outside force, they seem unlikely to muster political support. Webb likewise expresses a desire for the Big Nine to change their AI businesses by intentionally being more inclusive and ethical and asking themselves if their plans are likely to turn out well in the long term. She acknowledges that the Big Nine mean well, but are prisoners to their own myopia. Webb urges the reader to take action to influence governments and the Big Nine to address AI’s and China’s hazards. Given the artful sketching of the problem, the “solution” comes off as naïve.

A more specific problem with the book is Webb’s argument about the short-termism of publicly traded tech companies. Citing anecdotes from the G-MAFIA’s acquisition history, Webb asserts that the orientation toward profit predominates and prevents long-term planning. While this assertion conforms to conventional wisdom, in fact Amazon, Google and Apple are famously long-term oriented. All three are so awash in cash that they can make huge investments in AI, and their research and development budgets are rounding errors in their financial statements. By contrast, United States government programs, which are far more subject to our every two-year election cycles, are Webb’s panacea.

Another challenge to Webb’s thesis appears in the news. China’s Huawei reportedly has the second-highest AI development budget and is even more closely aligned with China’s government, yet does not make the Big Nine. Webb may be right that her nine are larger and more important, but the presence of a strong challenger such as Huawei challenges Webb’s thesis of the Big Nine’s hegemony.

The best answer, ultimately, may be to model ourselves after Webb. As she urges throughout the narrative, we must be mindful of the effects of AI—particularly as its power increases and its uses proliferate both in ways observed and ways subtle. We must stop to notice, drop onto a comfortable couch, and think.

 

Tod Northman, a partner at Tucker Ellis LLP, has 25 years of experience in business and corporate law, focusing in particular on aviation, business transactions, commercial law, autonomous vehicle and artificial intelligence technology, and mergers and acquisitions. He is a co-founder of the firm’s emerging technology and autonomous vehicle groups. Elisabeth Arko, an associate at Tucker Ellis LLP, has experience in complex civil litigation focusing in particular on products liability, toxic tort, medical malpractice, blockchain technology, and smart contracts. She is a co-founder of the firm’s emerging technology and blockchain groups.