Blog post
Essential AI Reading: Five New Book Recommendations from the KGL Smart Lab
22 Jul 2025
by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.
Everybody has an opinion on AI. Ranging from mesmerized to curious and terrified to dismissive, it is a fiercely polarizing topic that creates debate and controversy whenever it is mentioned. As our hunger to consume information about AI and get ahead of how it will impact our way of life grows, so too has the number of AI-themed books on our shelves. Despite the publishing industry’s often fraught relationship with AI, it has become one of the fastest growing non-fiction categories—the subject of many a bestseller and award-winning title—and publishers are exploiting our inherent need to make sense of it all.
Since our last Essential AI Reading post back in October 2023, a number of exciting new titles have been released, offering all kinds of fresh perspectives on this rapidly changing landscape. Some celebrate AI’s dizzying achievements, while others offer captivating behind-the-scenes insights into the tech companies at the heart of the revolution. Some aim to guide us on living and working with AI, while others encourage us to reject its hype and consider its negative future impact on humanity. There is certainly a wide range of viewpoints out there, so the KGL Smart Lab team has put together a handy guide on the latest AI books that they have been reading to help you decide on your next read.
Empire of AI: Inside the Reckless Race for World Domination
By Karen Hao
Hardback | Penguin Random House | May 20, 2025
When AI expert and award-winning journalist Karen Hao first began covering OpenAI in 2019, they were the “good guys”, a non-profit with safety enshrined as its core mission. Fast forward just a few years and we have entered a new and ominous age of empire, where OpenAI, funded by Microsoft’s billions, is leading the pack in a tech arms race that is reshaping the planet. But at what cost?
This eye-opening insider account of Sam Altman and Open AI, which became an instant New York Times bestseller, takes us behind the scenes for the very first time. By drawing on the viewpoints of Silicon Valley engineers, Kenyan data laborers, and Chilean water activists, Hao presents the fullest picture of AI and its impact we’ve seen to date, alongside a trenchant analysis of where things are headed.
Supremacy: AI, ChatGPT and the Race That Will Change the World
By Parmy Olson
Hardback | Macmillan Business | September 12, 2024
Sticking with the theme of the tech arms race, Supremacy is the astonishing story behind generative AI and the battle between Silicon Valley giants Microsoft and Google as they rush to embrace OpenAI and DeepMind and harness them for limitless profit. But who will win? What will be the cost of this arms race? And, as we outsource ever more to this technology, what will be left for humans to do?
Featuring a cast of larger-than-life characters—from Elon Musk and Peter Thiel to Mark Zuckerberg and Sergey Brin—Parmy Olson’s story of ambition, exploitation and secrecy picked up the Financial Times Business Book of the Year 2024 award and is as gripping and compelling as thriller.
How to Think About AI: A Guide for the Perplexed
By Richard Susskind
Hardback | Oxford University Press | March 20, 2025
Many people are confused about what AI is, what it can and cannot do, what is yet to come, whether it is good or bad for humanity and civilization, and whether it will provide solutions to mankind’s major challenges or become our gravest existential threat. In How to Think About AI, professor and prolific author Richard Susskind presents a short, non-technical guide that challenges us to think differently about AI.
Drawing on decades of experience working in AI, Susskind balances its benefits and threats, exploring its history and possible future, while offering his own, rather unconventional, views on a range of issues. He positions generative AI as no more than the latest chapter in the ongoing story of AI and claims we are still at the foothills of developments. He argues that to think responsibly about the impact of AI requires us to look well beyond today’s technologies, suggesting that not-yet-invented technologies will have far greater impact on us in the 2030s than the tools we have today. And he concludes by gazing into the future, discussing the possibility of conscious machines, magnificent new AI-enabled virtual worlds, and the impact of AI on the evolution of biological humans.
Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI
By Ethan Mollick
Paperback | Penguin Random House | April 2, 2024
One thing that has generally been missing from the AI books genre, is a practical guide on how to live and work with AI in our daily lives. Cutting through the noise of AI evangelists and AI doom-mongers, in Co-Intelligence Wharton professor Ethan Mollick focuses on the practical aspects of how AI tools can transform our world.
As one of the most prominent and provocative explainers of AI, Mollick urges us to engage with AI as co-worker, co-teacher and coach, assessing its profound impact on business and education and using dozens of real-life examples of AI in action. He challenges us to leverage AI’s enormous power without losing our identity, to learn from it without being misled, and to harness its gifts to create a better human future. Thought provoking and optimistic, this book reveals the promise and power of this new era.
The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want
By Emily M. Bender and Alex Hann
Hardback | Bodley Head | May 22, 2025
And now for a heavy dose of AI scepticism. Offering a sharp, witty and wide-ranging takedown of AI hype across its many forms, The AI Con looks at some of the drawbacks and pitfalls of AI technology and explores why it’s crucial to recognize the many ways in which AI hype is simply a mask for Big Tech’s drive for profit.
Packed with real-world examples, pithy arguments and expert insights, linguist Emily Bender and sociologist Alex Hanna show readers how to spot AI hype, how to deconstruct it, and how to expose the power grabs it aims to hide. If you’re looking for a well-developed contrary view on AI that approaches the topic from a completely different angle, then this is the book for you.
KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd. (KGL) is the industry leader in editorial, production, online hosting, and transformative services for every stage of the content lifecycle. We are your source for peer review services, market analysis, intelligent automation, digital delivery, and more. Email us at info@kwglobal.com.
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