Customer Reviews

The Improbable Machine: What the Upheavals in Artificial Intelligence Research Reveal About How the Mind Really Works

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This is the first review I have ever written on Amazon, and I am doing it mostly because this book is so under-represented here. I picked it up by chance and decided to give it a go, expecting it to be terribly boring and bogged down in scientific terms. I was so wrong. Campbell writes in a very approachable, conversational tone, frequently humorous or ironic. This is a fantastic introduction to the history of logic, something I had zero clue about. I'm only on the third chapter and already I have learned about Aristotle and syllogisms, Lewis Carroll, formal logic, non-euclidean geometry, and so much more. I cannot wait to see what's ahead in the book. 5 stars, and I recommend it to any right brained person who wants a gentle introduction to some very left-brained ideas. I definitely plan to keep this one around for my kids. As the other reviewer stated, despite being published in '89, this book is not outdated or irrelevant.

Review of Jeremy Campbell's book:

"The Improbable Machine: What the Upheavals in Artificial Intelligence Research Reveal About How the Mind Really Works"

This book explores mankind's understanding of the way the human mind functions, and how this understanding is related to the progression of the technology of artificial intelligence. And more importantly, how the understanding of the shortcomings of artificial intelligence demonstrate that the mechanisms which enable the human mind to function are superior to the results of any attempts at recreating them in an artificial machine. Although this book was published 16 years ago, current computer technology has yet to come significantly closer to creating a thinking, reasoning machine capable of matching the human mind's ability to do what it does.
Campbell's book is best suited for an audience that is well acquainted in the science of psychology. Anyone else may find themselves floundering about, bewildered (as I was), awash in unfamiliar terminology and concepts that are presented in this book in a rather effusive writing style.
There have been continual advances in computer technology since this book was written, yet it is and will remain, a timely work on the understanding of the workings of the human mind. It is still very much timely in this early part of the 21st century.