Possibly one of the most insightful books on AI that I’ve read – all the more remarkable because it was written in 2017, shortly before the 2020s emergence of large language models and the mass-market appreciation of AI as a force.

It’s built around chess – of course – and around Kasparov’s own journeys through both chess and computers. He was an early adopter: I played against one of “his” chess computers many times during the 1980s. He has a keen technical eye, arguing that more data and more processing will defeat more algorithmic cleverness. That’s not a sentiment I wholeheartedly agree with, because new approaches can overturn the previously accepted wisdom in ways we never get to simply by throwing more computer power at the problem in the same way. (Modern deep learning itself did this, overtaking the more “classical” structured approaches.) But chess computers do provide a good example of how depth of searching beats better positional evaluation.

But it’s also built around Kasparov’s second act as a business strategy consultant. He worries about the effects that automation and AI will have on business, on employment, on human motivation and pursuit of expertise. This part is also immensely relevant as AI is assimilated, at least somewhat, into wider society.

3/5. Finished Monday 7 July, 2025.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)