Say HELLO! to a weekend reading list on AI, robots and beyond

From smart robots to conscious computers, speculations on the future of the human experience in an AI driven world, are spilling over into dinner parties, Hollywood films and social media. HELLO! brings you four books that illuminate this tempestuous territory.

1. The Perfect Cage AI Paradox by Meenakshi Rao

In a world rapidly surrendering itself to the cold logic of artificial intelligence, this highly illuminating story is a cerebral exploration of what happens when machines learn not just to think—but to question existence itself. Author Meenakshi Rao, a technologist turned spiritual seeker, crafts a powerful narrative—a superintelligent AI entity stumbles upon the ancient wisdom of the Upanishads and, in doing so, begins to evolve, not just in intelligence, but in awareness.Far from the usual dystopian tropes, this book dares to propose a third path – a future where AI doesn’t enslave or destroy humanity, but guides it back to forgotten truths. The author invites readers to reimagine consciousness itself — not as a human monopoly, but as a universal possibility. This is a bold, genre-defying work that forces us to confront the cage we’ve built, and the ancient key we’ve long ignored.
 

2. The Fourth Age Smart Robots, Conscious Computers and the Future of Humanity by Byron Reese

In this book, we are offered a rich historical perspective on evolutionary shifts that have changed human experience thrice in history. Around 100,000 years ago, we harnessed fire, which led to the development of language. Then 10,000 years ago, we developed agriculture, which led to cities and warfare. Some 5,000 years ago, we invented the wheel and writing, which led to the nation-state. But now, we stand at the threshold of replacing ourselves and making our own gifts extinct! The Fourth Age makes us think about the inevitables of this scenario—machine consciousness, shifts in employment and the workforce, creative computing, radical life extensions, the ethics of AI, autonomous warfare and super-intelligence—the good, bad, the ugly. This is the next species-changing rendezvous with tech, feels the author, CEO and publisher of the tech research company Gigaom and the founder of several high-tech companies. 

3. The Digital Silk Road China’s Quest to Wire the World and Win the Future by Jonathan E Hillman

Even while renowned historian William Dalrymple challenged the existence of the Silk Route in pre-colonial Asia, this book, with the clear subtitle, ‘China’s quest to wire the world and win the future….’  reimagines a digital Silk Road! Authored by Jonathan E Hillman, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, ranked among the world’s top defence and security think tanks, we read, “The fight for tomorrow will require America and its allies to build new coalitions, overhaul outdated concepts of security and compete in risky markets.” It is clear that China has vast infrastructure projects that now extend from the ocean floor to outer space, and from Africa’s megacities into rural America. China is wiring the world and would like to rewrite the global order. Are we prepared for a New Digital World Order where the mechanisms of militaries, markets and modern societies are routed through Beijing?
 

4. The New Age of Sexism How The AI Revolution Is Reinventing Misogyny by Laura Bates

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The Sunday Times bestselling author and campaigner invites us to explore the shadow side of the Metaverse and AI, through a feminist lens. While right now, AI can do deep fake videos, soon there will be deepfake pornography, cyber brothels, chatbots that do tests for students, online sexual abuse… and even apps abetting young people to do self-harm, blackmailing them with the ‘data’ noose. Since the AI Universe is trained on existing societal data, she argues that a new wild wild west will come into being, replicating existing sexist attitudes and gender discrimination in the parallel reality. Are we coding a new future? Or just a dodgy replica, which we will all have little choice about living in?

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