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Scary Smart

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What to expect

This audiobook is masterfully read by the author, Mo Gawdat.

One of The Sunday Times' Business Books of the Year


Technology is putting our humanity at risk to an unprecedented degree. This book is not for engineers who write the code or the policy makers who claim they can regulate it. This is a book for you. Because, believe it or not, you are the only one that can fix it.Mo Gawdat

'From a brilliant mind comes a terrifying prediction' – Tim Ash, bestselling author of Unleash Your Primal Brain


Artificial intelligence is smarter than humans. It can process information at lightning speed and remain focused on specific tasks without distraction. AI can see into the future, predicting outcomes and even use sensors to see around physical and virtual corners. So why does AI frequently get it so wrong?

The answer is us. Humans design the algorithms that define the way that AI works, and the processed information reflects an imperfect world. Does that mean we are doomed? In Scary Smart, Mo Gawdat, the internationally bestselling author of Solve for Happy, draws on his considerable expertise to answer this question and to show what we can all do now to teach ourselves and our machines how to live better. With more than thirty years' experience working at the cutting-edge of technology and his former role as chief business officer of Google [X], no one is better placed than Mo Gawdat to explain how the Artificial Intelligence of the future works.

By 2049 AI will be a billion times more intelligent than humans. Scary Smart explains how to fix the current trajectory now, to make sure that the AI of the future can preserve our species. This audiobook offers a blueprint, pointing the way to what we can do to safeguard ourselves, those we love and the planet itself.

Critics Review

  • Mo Gawdat is my life guru. His writing, his ideas and his generosity in sharing them has changed my life for the better in so many ways. Everything he writes is an enlightening education in how to be human.

    Elizabeth Day
  • A proactive and bold read that provides the shake that humans need to take back our agency over AI, and therefore the fate of the world as we see it.

    Dr Camilla Pang, author of Explaining Humans: What Science Can Teach Us About Life, Love and Relationships
  • From a brilliant mind comes a terrifying prediction – our puny efforts will not be enough to control the rise of the machines… Mo takes us on a whirlwind exploration of the fast-approaching singularity, and offers a desperate last chance to have a say in the future of humanity. Read this book!

    Tim Ash, bestselling author of Unleash Your Primal Brain
  • Scary Smart is unlike anything I’ve ever read . . . What Mo does is help us analyze what it means to be human, by looking at what can or cannot happen with the rise of artificial intelligence.

    Poppy Jamie, author and founder of Happy Not Perfect
  • Our brain fog about artificial intelligence makes it both exciting and terrifying in equal measure, Mo Gawdat is the expert guide you need to help decipher the realities of a complex subject. Mo writes so beautifully that a complex subject reads like a page turner.

    Bruce Daisley, Former Twitter VP and bestselling author of The Joy of Work
  • As we face the future we can either choose to deny reality and suffer or face reality head on. We can withdraw into our own private worlds and give up on humanity or remain joyful and engaged to do our part to improve our future for our children, grandchildren, and future generations. The choice is ours. I’m choosing to “go with Mo.”

    Jed Diamond, PhD, author of The Enlightened Marriage and Twelve Rules for Good Men

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