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“The Atomic Human: Understanding Ourselves in the Age of AI” is a book published with Penguin’s Allen Lane in the UK on 6th June 2024.

For the US and Canada it is published on 3rd September 2024 with PublicAffairs. The US title is “The Atomic Human: What Makes us Unique in the Age of AI”

Synopsis

What does Artificial Intelligence mean for our identity? Our fascination with AI stems from the perceived uniqueness of human intelligence. We believe it’s what differentiates us. Fears of AI not only concern how it invades our digital lives, but also the implied threat of an intelligence that displaces us from our position at the centre of the world.

Neil D. Lawrence’s visionary book shows why these fears may be misplaced. Atomism, proposed by Democritus, suggested it was impossible to continue dividing matter down into ever smaller components: eventually we reach a point where a cut cannot be made (the Greek for uncuttable is ‘atom’). In the same way, by slicing away at the facets of human intelligence that can be replaced by machines, AI uncovers what is left: an indivisible core that is the essence of humanity.

Human intelligence has evolved across hundreds of thousands of years. Due to our physical and cognitive constraints over that time, it is social and highly embodied. By contrasting our capabilities with machine intelligence, The Atomic Human reveals the technical origins, capabilities and limitations of AI systems, and how they should be wielded. Not just by the experts, but ordinary people. Understanding this will enable readers to choose the future we want – either one where AI is a tool for us, or where we become a tool of AI – and how to counteract the digital oligarchy to maintain the fabric of an open, fair and democratic society.

Reviews of The Atomic Human

‘The clarity, authority, wit and insight Lawrence brings to bear are like torches shining into the turbulent darkness of a subject we all wonder at, but which we mostly feel unable to even to think or talk about with any confidence. Hugely recommended’ Stephen Fry

‘Neil Lawrence’s The Atomic Human is a brilliant technological and philosophical tour de force by one the world’s foremost authorities on the world of AI and machine learning. Anyone interested in the great promise and potential dangers of AI and machine learning would do well to read this book. The Atomic Human is at once fascinating, entertaining, and a deeply serious study on one of the most consequential emerging technologies humans have ever developed. Lawrence has plenty of computer science laced through the book, but he makes it understandable to the non-specialist by great use of historical examples and explanation by analogy. It is also a book of ethics and philosophy that argues we must always ensure that machines and AI are viewed and used as tools to assist humans and we must never concede control of fundamental decisions of great consequence. A great book by an obviously brilliant author.’ General Mark A. Milley, former chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff

‘This is a book for anyone and everyone who is interested in what makes humans different from machines by one of the world’s experts in AI research. Understanding the differences more may help us live in harmony alongside very intelligent machines so that we can worry less about existential threats and more about how we work with intelligent machines to make the world a better place’ Dame Wendy Hall, Regius Professor of Computer Science, University of Southampton, co-author of Four Internets

‘According to Professor Neil Lawrence, all of us suffer from locked-in syndrome … I have been gripped by this insight. Lawrence’s book concludes that whatever AI becomes, and whether or not it ultimately poses a threat to our species, it will never replicate or penetrate the essence of what it means to be human … To be a human is, indeed, to be locked in. But it is in our struggle against inarticulacy that we find our deepest voice and highest meaning’ – Matthew Syed ― The Sunday Times. Author of Rebel Ideas and Black Box Thinking.

‘This is an utterly absorbing account of humans, computers, and how much they differ. It explains why AI cannot substitute for human intelligence even as machine intelligence poses enormous challenges for how information is used and societies are organised’ – Dame Diane Coyle, Bennett Professor of Public Policy, University of Cambridge, author of Cogs and Monsters

‘The intellectual sweep of Sapiens focused on understanding and contrasting human and machine intelligence and what this means for society. Professor Lawrence invites the general reader to join him in the debate, effortlessly bridging C. P. Snow’s ‘two cultures’ with lucid accessible explanations of key concepts from mathematics and computer science and resonant human and cultural stories by way of Democritus, Ernest Hemingway and the information contained in our assumptions about what car his mother drives.’ – Dr Jean Innes, CEO The Alan Turing Institute.

‘An enlightening read on AI. Lawrence reminds us that brilliant story telling is the human way to communicate at scale given our otherwise structurally low bandwidth. My main take away is the importance of the difference between intelligence as a property rather than intelligence as an entity.’ – Lord Petitgas, UK Prime Minister’s Special Adviser on Business and Investment

‘The Atomic Human is a brilliantly panoramic celebration of the vast expanses of human cognition, as well as the ingenious, flawed, and often bizarre attempts to replicate it artificially. Refusing easy answers, Neil Lawrence cuts a huge swath across the history of computation with passion, erudition, skepticism, and hope. Cognition, he shows us repeatedly, is not an abstract formula, but an impossibly eclectic phenomenon that manifests differently in myriad contexts. From amoebae to the brain to information theory, from Isaac Newton to Alan Turing to ChatGPT, Lawrence shows that our approximations of the mind leave out as much as they leave in. Lawrence reminds us of the plumbed and unplumbed depths of what is really at stake and the unexpected consequences that will accompany the increased integration of society and technology, the uncontrolled behemoth he calls System Zero. What he demonstrates is more relevant and more urgent than most supposed metrics of AI capability today.’ from David Auerbach, author of Meganets and Bitwise: A Life in Code.

‘Neil Lawrence is one of the world’s foremost authorities on AI and one of the few who has deployed AI in large-scale industrial systems. He is also a rare technical leader who understands AI as part of a long evolution of human beings interacting with other intelligences in a cognitive landscape.

‘In this thoughtful and engaging book – ranging from James Watt’s steam engines to World War II gunners and the Apollo lunar landings – Lawrence shows us what’s novel and what’s human about AI.

‘A must read for anyone seeking to understand AI’s place in our world and how to harness it for human flourishing. from David A. Mindell Dibner Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing, Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics, MIT

‘As a Cambridge computer science professor and a former Amazon director, Lawrence understands both the theory and practice of AI. His clear-eyed book expertly explains the capabilities — and limitations — of machine intelligence. Ignore the doomsayers: human intelligence still has a lot going for it, he argues.’ from John Thornhill for the Financial Times

Press

Television

Interview with Stephen Sackur on HARDtalk where we discuss some of the themes of the book. The video is IPlayer which is UK only. Podcast version is produced via BBC World Service and is available internationally here in audio only form.

Podcast and Internet

Talks at Google conversation with Zoubin Ghahramani.

The Case for AI Optimism: Neil Lawrence on Humanity’s Edge over Machines, interview with Jessi Hempel on “Hello Monday!” which Jessi summarises as “Only other humans have insights into humans.”

Print

Fred Skulthorp in The Critic He wonders aloud whether the subject would court as much attention were conferences on AI to be renamed “Global Forum on Computers and Statistics for Humanity”. This enjoyable cynicism flares up throughout. “I think he really believed that his investment would, in time, buy him a smarter human,” he says of Zuckerberg’s purchasing a machine intelligence lab.

All this poses another question: has the onset of a new technology ever been accompanied by such a poor understanding of what it actually is? The book is at its best when it provides that rare thing, an accessible and interesting history of computer science.

The theoretical underpinnings of AI can be traced to roughly three enlightenment figures: Laplace, Leibniz and Newton. Fed with the vast amounts of data allowed by modern computing, their conceptual models for understanding the universe have provided us with algorithms that get increasingly better at mimicking human intelligence. Or to put it more simply: “The artificial intelligence we are peddling … simply combines very large datasets and computers.”

Lawrence’s finest moments come when these explanatory reductions are wielded against some of the more popular figures and narratives that have emerged around AI. Twenty-odd pages in, two rather large shots are fired in the direction of Nick Bostrom and Ray Kurzweil. These titanic figures have done much to define a popular trajectory of AI as leading to a “superintelligence” capable of handing over the civilisational keys to a computer. This is all “hooey”, writes Lawrence. The problem they make is “to conflate the intelligence of a decision with the notion of an intelligent entity”.

Nature Books in Brief by Andrew Robinson Computer scientist Neil Lawrence has worked on machine learning for more than 20 years at universities and technology companies: experiences that illuminate his views on intelligence in this demanding but fascinating debut book. Its title draws on the concept, proposed by the philosopher Democritus, that matter cannot be reduced beyond atoms. Lawrence argues that human intelligence is also atomic. “Although not a believer, I have sympathy with the idea that there is a spirit within us that cannot be replaced by a machine.”

Warning from AI is stark: we have two years to save learning this piece by Sir Anthony Seldon references several ideas from the book in its discussion about how we prevent the erosion of our humanity through AI.

Dont expect AI to just fix everything, professor warns Report from a Times Tech Summit panel where I mention several ideas from the book.

Review and Summary: The Atomic Human by Sekar “What makes this book stand out is Lawrence’s focus on what truly defines us as humans. He argues that it’s not our strengths or our technological achievements that set us apart, but our vulnerabilities. These imperfections are what have driven us to grow, connect, and create cultures that go beyond mere survival. AI, on the other hand, may be powerful and precise, but it lacks this sense of vulnerability. And according to Lawrence, that’s where we find our “atomic human”—in the uniquely human traits that no machine can imitate.

But Lawrence’s message isn’t just about AI; it’s also about us. He challenges us to rethink about who we are and who we want to be in a world increasingly shaped by technology. As AI’s role expands, Lawrence believes we must better understand our own nature to navigate the challenges ahead—whether it’s resisting manipulation through technology or adapting to cultural changes in a machine-driven world.”

Dieter Petereit in t3n (reporting based on New Scientist article below “Unsere Fähigkeit, Dinge zu sehen und Entscheidungen zu treffen, hängt von unseren Schwächen und unseren Grenzen ab, und wir werden nie in der Lage sein, dies in Maschinen nachzuahmen, weil Maschinen diese Grenzen nicht eingebaut haben und auch nie haben werden.

Schon äußere Umstände wie der Tod, der Verlust des eigenen Rufs oder der Verrat durch einen anderen Menschen seien Dinge, „die ein Computer nicht erleben kann, die uns zu etwas Besonderem machen. Es sind diese Dinge, die die menschliche Intelligenz einzigartig machen“.

Emre Çıtak in Dataconomy “AI, no matter how sophisticated, lacks the embodiment that is central to human and animal life. Our intelligence is deeply rooted in our biology, influenced by our emotions, physical sensations, and social bonds. AI, by contrast, operates in an entirely different realm—it processes data, learns patterns, and performs tasks, but it doesn’t feel, reflect, or engage in the emotional and social complexity that defines human and even animal experience.

AI might be able to simulate aspects of human behavior, like recognizing faces or generating text, but it fundamentally lacks the depth of human consciousness. The experience of being human—grappling with joy, sorrow, love, and existential questions—is something that cannot be encoded in algorithms.”

Alex Wilkins in The New Scientist “And will AI ever have human levels of intelligence?

Well, those capabilities, in some sense, are critically dependent on our limitations. Our ability to see things, to make decisions, is dependent on our vulnerabilities and our limitations, and we’ll never be able to emulate that in machines because machines don’t have those limitations baked in and never will.

The fact that we’re going to die, the fact that those close to us can die, we can be betrayed by other humans, we can lose our reputation – it’s these things that a computer can’t experience that make us special. It is these things that make human intelligence unique.”

Michael Luca in The Wall Street Journal “There is no stopping the widespread adoption of AI. But there are opportunities to shape its societal impact. By understanding both AI and ourselves, we can engage more thoughtfully with emerging technologies and ensure that we only “serve the machine because it helps us,” while remaining aware of how it might not.”

Pia Lauritzen in Forbes Magazine “The Atomic Human is a reminder that we have other options than leaving it to technology to save us.”

Norman Lewis in Spiked “Lawrence ends his book by reminding us of the lesson of Goethe’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, in which the hapless apprentice deploys a spell but cannot control the results. It is a good analogy of how Big Tech companies can sometimes deploy software systems they cannot control. But it does not have to be this way.

We need to resist the attempts to portray human beings as fragile, limited and ‘atomic’ – and as no match for the technology we ourselves have created. We can, should we choose to, shape technology to meet our needs and wishes. We must once again make the case for human beings.”

Bryan Appleyard in Engelsberg Ideas. “The book concludes with a warning that ‘we must step up’ and ensure the machines remain our servants. He is right – of course we must, but will we? There is, as we should all have learned, no limit to human folly. The faces of the gamers, the coders, the geeks, the freaks and Mark Zuckerberg, when they are absorbed by their machines or when they talk about them, suggest a quasi-religious intensity. But the machine god would be no friend of ours and it certainly won’t have read or understood this astonishing book. So don’t break things, you might need them later.”

George Lawton in diginomica “Meet The Atomic Human - a draft blueprint for trustworthy AI. Neil D. Lawrence’s new book explains the ideas and misconceptions shaping modern AI. Building trustworthy AI needs to start with considerations of power imbalances and automated decision-making.”

Stuart Jeffries in The Spectator “The great joy of this discursive book - one of the best on the perils and boons of AI so far written - is to show that technological innovation has both liberated and enslaved us. Or, as the French philosopher Paul Virilio put it: ‘The invention of the ship was also the invention of the shipwreck.’”

Adam Rutherford Review for the Guardian Slightly odd review in which Adam mentions the terminator in the first line of his review where he criticises me for mentioning the terminator in first line of the book! I think we’re both trying to make the same point, that its not a helpful image … but the Atomic Human tries to explain why we use the image, so it doesn’t make the point on first introduction of the film (which it introduces alongside the Sistine chapel image of creation … another classic AI meme written about by Beth Galetti as referenced). Adam also feels I could have done a better job at introducing diverse voices. I’m sure he’s right … but I think there’s a little more diversity to the book than he gives credit! His scan of the index doesn’t really do justice to the ways I try to do that. I think he was provoked by a slightly misleading comment in the press release … which I didn’t write but had signed off on … so more blame on me there and I’m sure I could have done more on this important problem. But am pleased that Adam enjoys some of the other messages the book is trying to get across. It’s certainly written in a spirit which I think matches much of Adam’s admirable body of work.

Brian Clegg in Popular Science Brian likes some aspects (4* from 5), but doesn’t like my narrative style. It’s certainly a style that reflects who I am, and that felt important given the theme of the book. I’m unsure whether to take the James Joyce comparison as a compliment! It is certainly true that I intermingle many stories, but the choice and mix of stories is very purposeful. It is my hope was that there’s method behind the madness. It was my attempt to square the circle of inviting the reader to contribute their thinking to the ideas. I feel there’s too many books that tell the reader how AI works and what’s going to happen. I suppose that is the normal style of a popular science book, but I think that style works best when a technology or idea is well understood (how stars form or what the fundamental laws of physics are). Whereas this technology is different because of how closely integrated it is with our humanity, and how that will pan out is difficult to predict, the main idea is to give the reader the confidence that they should get involved.

Update: 15th July 2024 Brian has published an email interview we did here.

Best summer books of 2024: Technology by John Thornhill for the Financial Times

These new books will help you understand AI by Liz Scheier for Publisher’s Weekly

Ray Kurzweil and other experts clash over AI’s future in new books by Alex Wilkins for The New Scientist. “We would do well to listen to experts like Vallor or Lawrence to discover how it really works, rather than succumb to fantastical visions of the future.”

Vulnerable Comme un Humain by Philippe Mecure for La Presse

Locked in by language, we are freed by music, poetry, painting … and love by Matthew Syed for The Sunday Times

Why we should worry about the technological pessimists by John Thornhill for the Financial Times

Radio

7th August 2024. Extra Time with Paul Ross on TalkSport. Intervew starts 2hrs 37 minutes into the four hour episode.

Past Events

This site last compiled Sun, 01 Dec 2024 18:16:50 +0000
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