Supremacy
AI, ChatGPT and the Race That Will Change the World
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Supremacy
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Narrated by:
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Lisa Flanagan
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By:
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Parmy Olson
About this listen
Winner of the Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year 2024
'A clear and compelling read about one of the most consequential races in the world' - Madhumita Murgia, bestselling author of Code Dependent and AI Editor for The Financial Times
Discover the never-before-told story of the ruthless shadow race between Microsoft and Google, as both compete to develop a mass-market AI while juggling existential questions of ethics, human progress and the future of the world as we know it.
"They declined his offer too, not realizing how much the thin-skinned Musk didn’t like it when people said no. Soon enough though, Hassabis got another email. This time, it was from Google."
When ChatGPT was released, the world changed overnight. Even as we all played with the new toy, a very real danger was quickly coming to light: that untested automations would undermine our way of life insidiously, sucking value out of our economy, replacing high-level creative jobs and enabling a new, terrifying era of disinformation.
It was never meant to be this way. The founders of the two companies behind the most advanced AIs in existence – Open AI (ChatGPT) and DeepMind (Bard) – started their journeys determined to solve humanity’s greatest problems. But they couldn’t develop their technologies without huge amounts of money – money that Microsoft and Google were more than happy to give them, in exchange for the most powerful seats at the table.
From award-winning journalist Parmy Olson, Supremacy is the astonishing, untold, behind-the-scenes story of the battle between two AI companies, their struggles to use their tech for good, and the dangerous direction that they’re now going in. Featuring a cast of larger-than-life characters, including Elon Musk, Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Peter Thiel, Supremacy is a story of manipulation, exploitation, secrecy and of ruthless, relentless human progress – progress that will impact all of us for years to come.
'Makes the topic of AI approachable and entertaining by telling the human stories of the people building AI companies. There is never a dull moment in this gripping book' - Arvind Narayanan, Professor of Computer Science at Princeton University
'Money, power, and a bargain that may change the world frame this timely and deeply researched account of two of the biggest players in the race to AI' - Gary Marcus, author of Taming Silicon Valley and Professor Emeritus at New York University
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What listeners say about Supremacy
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Henrique
- 08-03-25
Bias inflation
The good of the book ia that it tells rje story of the foundera leanding AI. The bad is the huge biaa information. The book is extremely boased towards biases
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Dan C
- 25-10-24
An Incredible History Of AI Inception and Proliferation
I bought this on a whim because I didn’t know much about AI, but was interested. I was hooked from the outset. The author has taken a fairly dry subject and has made the story interesting, informative and fairly terrifying. I would thoroughly recommend.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Nicholas
- 22-12-24
Great overview of AI
If you’re after a modern day history of overview and how the key players came together this book is great.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- blackrose_19
- 25-10-24
Interesting, however overally woke.
As a egalitarian I found the author to be woke. So much info on AI but the woke whine was annoying
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- C. K. Letts
- 04-05-25
Just the kind of explanations I was looking for
I don’t recall anything, but I disliked about this book and I recommend it’s a good read. I’m going to go through all again.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Dylan Stewart
- 03-10-24
Very Informative and Interesting Listen
Focussing less on the inner workings of AI/AGI but rather looking into the characters and forces influencing the AI models now and in future I found this a very interesting listen.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Stuart Hughes
- 19-03-25
Interesting summary of the early days of GenAI
I got to the end so it’s well written. With the huge impact of GenAI on the world the story is simpler.
AGI was the goal, the leaders perusing it were attempting to be ethical and focused on benefiting the human race.
Once the technology was mature a partnership with Big Tech was necessary to give the cloud capacity. GenAI is now owned by big tech.
The voice was a bit robotic.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Mr. M. J. Yeomans
- 03-05-25
Well consolidated background to past decade of AI and the key people behind it
Well written, easy listen, telling the story of big minds in AI to help give a sense of the issues. I'm recommending to friends as a food for thought on wider risks of AI.
Nothing unknown factually, but it nicely pieces together the many bits of background/context that have come out over the past decade.
Would've been nice had there been deeper exploration of some items but that wasn't the aim of this book so won't rate it down there.
Summary
- Big tech are the winners (Google and Microsoft)
- Sam Altmann's v good at marketing (probably unsurprising when clocking his background was in VC funding)
- Google is uninnovative and cares only about ad revenue (Deep mind story)
- Threat isnt Terminator but reinforcing biases (not discussed is the genuine challenge of combatting that given AI is a probability engine)
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Barry
- 11-12-24
People competing in AI
Great insights into AI pioneers - Hassabis and Altman, as they figure out what they want and what they can get funded.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Kimmy
- 25-03-25
Informative overview of what has led to the AI race
This was very informative but it could have been more detailed with the examples that were shared
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