Machines Who Think by Pamela McCorduck

Is it that time already? The classic Machines Who Think (A. K. Peters, $19.95) has come out in a 25th anniversary edition, updated with 30,000 after-words. Writer Pamela McCorduck told the story through interviews with many key players in artificial intelligence while they were at their most productive. Inevitably, after the grand claims came the long “AI winter” lasting through 1980s. Now she sees a revival – though much of it is not labelled “AI”, being embedded in, for example, the credit card network or autonomous vehicles.