
These Strange New Minds
How AI Learned to Talk and What It Means
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Narrated by:
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Rufus Wright
About this listen
An insider look at the Large Language Models (LLMs) that are revolutionizing our relationship to technology, exploring their surprising history, what they can and should do for us today, and where they will go in the future—from an AI pioneer and neuroscientist
In this accessible, up-to-date, and authoritative examination of the world’s most radical technology, neuroscientist and AI researcher Christopher Summerfield explores what it really takes to build a brain from scratch. We have entered a world in which disarmingly human-like chatbots, such as ChatGPT, Claude and Bard, appear to be able to talk and reason like us—and are beginning to transform everything we do. But can AI ‘think’, 'know' and ‘understand’? What are its values? Whose biases is it perpetuating? Can it lie and if so, could we tell? Does their arrival threaten our very existence?
These Strange New Minds charts the evolution of intelligent talking machines and provides us with the tools to understand how they work and how we can use them. Ultimately, armed with an understanding of AI’s mysterious inner workings, we can begin to grapple with the existential question of our age: have we written ourselves out of history or is a technological utopia ahead?
©2025 Christopher Summerfield (P)2025 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“A compelling and insightful exploration of large language models (LLMs) and their profound world impact. This work is both a great introduction to artificial intelligence and a thought-provoking analysis of its capabilities and limitations…. A key addition to collections, this is more than just another tech book: it’s a guide to navigating the era of AI with awareness, and the writing encourages readers to think critically about how humans interact with the technology.”—Library Journal
“A clear-minded, accessible examination of how AI systems work.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Provocative… Summerfield brings some welcome nuance and clarity to discussions of LLMs. In a crowded field of AI primers, this rises to the top.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
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- By: Joyce E. Chaplin
- Narrated by: Cynthia Farrell
- Length: 14 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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The biggest revolution in Benjamin Franklin’s lifetime was made to fit in a fireplace. Assembled from iron plates like a piece of flatpack furniture, the Franklin stove became one of the era's most iconic consumer products, spreading from Pennsylvania to England, Italy, and beyond. It was more than just a material object, however—it was also a hypothesis. Franklin was proposing that, armed with science, he could invent his way out of a climate crisis: a period of global cooling known as the Little Ice Age, when unusually bitter winters sometimes brought life to a standstill.
By: Joyce E. Chaplin
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The Edge of Sentience
- Risk and Precaution in Humans, Other Animals, and AI
- By: Jonathan Birch
- Narrated by: Graham Mack
- Length: 15 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Can octopuses feel pain and pleasure? What about crabs, shrimps, insects, or spiders? How do we tell whether a person unresponsive after severe brain injury might be suffering? When does a fetus in the womb start to have conscious experiences? Could there even be rudimentary feelings in miniature models of the human brain, grown from human stem cells? And what about AI? These are questions about the edge of sentience, and they are subject to enormous, disorienting uncertainty. We desperately want certainty, but it is out of reach.
By: Jonathan Birch
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The Second Machine Age
- Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies
- By: Erik Brynjolfsson, Andrew McAfee
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Second Machine Age MIT's Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee—two thinkers at the forefront of their field—reveal the forces driving the reinvention of our lives and our economy. As the full impact of digital technologies is felt, we will realize immense bounty in the form of dazzling personal technology, advanced infrastructure, and near-boundless access to the cultural items that enrich our lives. Amid this bounty will also be wrenching change. Recent economic indicators reflect this shift: fewer people are working, and wages are falling even as productivity and profits soar.
By: Erik Brynjolfsson, and others
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The Narrative Brain
- The Stories Our Neurons Tell
- By: Fritz Alwin Breithaupt PhD
- Narrated by: Brian Wiggins
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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As humans, we think in stories—stories that allow us to feel and share emotions. In order for this phenomenon to work, our brains and the ways in which we tell stories must be attuned to each other. But how exactly does this happen? Tapping into the essence of thinking in stories, Fritz Breithaupt draws on the latest scientific research, including a retelling study (comparable to the telephone game) with more than 12,000 participants, and experiments in which ChatGPT functions as storyteller.
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The Infrastructure Book
- How Cities Work and Power Our Lives
- By: Sybil Derrible
- Narrated by: Derek Dysart
- Length: 8 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Clean water, paved roads, public transit, electricity and gas, sewers, waste processing, telecommunication, even the Internet—all this infrastructure is what makes cities work and powers our lives, often seamlessly and silently. Virtually everything we do and consume depends on infrastructure. Yet, most people have no idea how these systems work. How is water treated? How do cities manage rainwater? Why do traffic jams exist? How is electricity generated and distributed? What happens to trash after it is picked up? How does the Internet work?
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Insightful and engaging!
- By Rishabh on 03-08-25
By: Sybil Derrible
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Shamans and Robots
- On Ritual, the Placebo Effect, and Artificial Consciousness
- By: Roger Bartra, Gusti Gould - translator
- Narrated by: Asa Siegel
- Length: 4 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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This book is a profound exploration of the external influences that shape human consciousness, from healing rituals to digital devices. In this voyage through thousands of years of psychosomatic healing, distinguished anthropologist and sociologist Roger Bartra examines the placebo effect as a key to our understanding of human consciousness. Shamans and Robots demonstrates how biology and technology become intertwined within human culture by using the various histories of ritual and symbolic healing to speculate about future developments in artificial intelligence.
By: Roger Bartra, and others
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2084 and the AI Revolution (Updated and Expanded Edition)
- How Artificial Intelligence Informs Our Future
- By: John C. Lennox
- Narrated by: John C. Lennox
- Length: 17 hrs
- Unabridged
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You don't have to be a computer scientist to have discerning conversations about artificial intelligence and technology. We all wonder where we're headed. Even now, technological innovations and machine learning have a daily impact on our lives, and many of us see good reasons to dread the future. Are we doomed to the surveillance society imagined in George Orwell's 1984? Mathematician and philosopher John Lennox believes that there are credible responses to the daunting questions that AI poses.
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John writes well.
- By Anonymous User on 06-06-25
By: John C. Lennox
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The AI Con
- How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want
- By: Emily M. Bender, Alex Hanna
- Narrated by: Jade Wheeler
- Length: 7 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Is artificial intelligence going to take over the world? Have big tech scientists created an artificial lifeform that can think on its own? Is it going to put authors, artists, and others out of business? Are we about to enter an age where computers are better than humans at everything? The answer to these questions, linguist Emily M. Bender and sociologist Alex Hanna make clear, is “no,” “they wish,” “LOL,” and “definitely not.” This kind of thinking is a symptom of a phenomenon known as “AI hype.”
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A must read, even if you're an AI optimist
- By Malcolm Gomez on 05-15-25
By: Emily M. Bender, and others
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AI Snake Oil
- What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can't, and How to Tell the Difference
- By: Sayash Kapoor, Arvind Narayanan
- Narrated by: Landon Woodson
- Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Confused about AI and worried about what it means for your future and the future of the world? You’re not alone. AI is everywhere—and few things are surrounded by so much hype, misinformation, and misunderstanding. In AI Snake Oil, computer scientists Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor cut through the confusion to give you an essential understanding of how AI works, why it often doesn’t, where it might be useful or harmful, and when you should suspect that companies are using AI hype to sell AI snake oil—products that don’t work, and probably never will.
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Mediocre
- By Amazon Customer on 05-20-25
By: Sayash Kapoor, and others
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The Thinking Machine
- Jensen Huang, Nvidia, and the World's Most Coveted Microchip
- By: Stephen Witt
- Narrated by: Stephen Witt
- Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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In June of 2024, thirty-one years after its founding in a Denny’s restaurant, Nvidia became the most valuable corporation on Earth. The Thinking Machine is the astonishing story of how a designer of video game equipment conquered the market for AI hardware, and in the process re-invented the computer. Essential to Nvidia’s meteoric success is its visionary CEO Jensen Huang, who more than a decade ago, on the basis of a few promising scientific results, bet his entire company on AI.
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A wonderful book!
- By John K. Clark on 04-13-25
By: Stephen Witt
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Theft
- A Novel
- By: Abdulrazak Gurnah
- Narrated by: Ashley Zhangazha
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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At the turn of the twenty-first century, three young people come of age in Tanzania. Karim returns to his sleepy hometown after university with new swagger and ambition. Fauzia glimpses in him a chance at escape from a smothering upbringing. The two of them offer a haven to Badar, a poor boy still unsure if the future holds anything for him at all. As tourism, technology, and unexpected opportunities and perils reach their quiet corner of the world, bringing, each arrives at a different understanding of what it means to take your fate into your own hands.
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Potting more than a slice of life
- By Susan on 06-07-25
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Co-Intelligence
- Living and Working with AI
- By: Ethan Mollick
- Narrated by: Ethan Mollick
- Length: 4 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Something new entered our world in November 2022—the first general purpose AI that could pass for a human and do the kinds of creative, innovative work that only humans could do previously. Wharton professor Ethan Mollick immediately understood what ChatGPT meant: after millions of years on our own, humans had developed a kind of co-intelligence that could augment, or even replace, human thinking. Through his writing, speaking, and teaching, Mollick has become one of the most prominent and provocative explainers of AI.
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great intro book marred by poor narration
- By Amazon Customer on 04-14-24
By: Ethan Mollick
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Adaptable
- How Your Unique Body Really Works and Why Our Biology Unites Us
- By: Herman Pontzer PhD
- Narrated by: P.J. Ochlan
- Length: 10 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Adaptable takes us on a tour of the human body. In each chapter, we learn how our bodies navigate an uncertain world: how we grow and mature; how our brains develop and learn; how our hearts, lungs, and digestive systems deliver oxygen and nutrients; how we manage toxins, temperature, and water balance; how we move and reproduce; how our immune system keeps invaders at bay; and how we age and decline. Along the way, we learn how to take care of our remarkable bodies, and that the universe of healthy lifestyles is vast (we don’t need the latest fad diet or cleanse!).
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Surprisingly Engaging
- By user7720393 on 04-11-25
Excellent Perspective to AI
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