A WALL STREET JOURNAL WASHINGTON POST AND FINANCIAL TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEARIn this
ground-breaking blend of imaginative storytelling and scientific forecasting a pioneering AI
expert and a leading writer of speculative fiction join forces to answer an imperative
question: How will artificial intelligence change our world within twenty years? AI will be the
defining development of the twenty-first century. Within two decades aspects of daily human
life will be unrecognizable. AI will generate unprecedented wealth revolutionize medicine and
education through human-machine symbiosis and create brand new forms of communication and
entertainment. In liberating us from routine work however AI will also challenge the
organizing principles of our economic and social order. Meanwhile AI will bring new risks in
the form of autonomous weapons and smart technology that inherits human bias. AI is at a
tipping point and people need to wake up-both to AI's radiant pathways and its existential
perils for life as we know it. In this provocative utterly original work of scientific fiction
Kai-Fu Lee the former president of Google China and bestselling author of AI Superpowers
joins forces with celebrated novelist Chen Qiufan to imagine our world in 2041 and how it will
be shaped by AI. In ten gripping short stories set twenty years in the future they introduce
readers to an array of eye-opening 2041 settings: In San Francisco a new industry job
reallocation arises to serve displaced workers In Tokyo a music fan is swept up in an
immersive form of celebrity worship In Mumbai a teenage girl rebels when AI gets in the way of
romance In Seoul virtual teachers offer orphaned twins new ways to learn and connect In Munich
a rogue quantum computer scientist's revenge plot imperils the world By gazing toward a
not-so-distant horizon AI 2041 offers urgent insights into our collective future-while
reminding readers that ultimately humankind remains the author of its destiny.
