Overview

Discover how artificial intelligence will challenge everything we believe about consciousness, free will, creativity, and what makes us truly human. In an era when AI will soon predict our breakfast choices, shopping habits, and romantic attractions with uncanny accuracy, quantum physicist Ron Folman poses a provocative question: If we’re this predictable, are we truly conscious beings with free will or simply sophisticated machines? Drawing from quantum physics, cognitive science, philosophy, and rising technologies, The Human Test explores how the rise of AI and Big Data is forcing us to confront uncomfortable truths about human nature. As technology evolves to predict our behavior with increasing precision, Folman challenges us to reconsider what it means to be truly alive and conscious. Specifically, he shows by way of a breathtaking narrative that already in the very near future, nonconscious AI will give rise to the most profound experiment ever performed on humans, providing us for the first time with quantitative answers to these core human enigmas. But within this seemingly dystopian future lies an unexpected source of hope: our capacity for creativity. Folman reveals how this uniquely human trait might be the key to maintaining our humanity in an age of algorithmic predictability. Moreover, as he journeys to the nucleus of creativity, he suggests effective ways to enhance and empower its horizon. The Human Test isn’t just another book about AI—it’s a profound investigation into what makes us human and how we can remain so in a world that increasingly treats us as data points to be predicted and controlled.

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9781493089208

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Reviews

""In the cacophony of voices, books, and articles on the topic of AI, The Human Test clearly stands out. Intertwining alluring storytelling with a myriad of scientific and technological facts and conjectures, from philosophy through biology and quantum physics, Ron Folman hypothesizes that AI will be able to provide us with deep insight to questions of consciousness, creativity, the quantum mind, and free will. As a computer scientist who devoted his career to Big Data and AI, and their alignment with human values, I find this book to be captivating and, more importantly, of paramount importance to our future.""--Alon Halevy, PhD, Distinguished Engineer at Google, previously at Amazon and Facebook. Winner of the 2021 Edgar F. Codd SIGMOD Innovations Award, and a recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE)

Author Information

Ron Folman is professor of physics specializing in quantum mechanics and futuristic technologies at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, where he is head of the Atom Chip Lab and the founder of both the Center for Quantum Science and Technology and the Nano-Fabrication Center where quantum chips are designed and produced for R&D labs around the world. He received his PhD from the Weizmann Institute of Science and CERN. He has been awarded the Lamb Award for Laser Science and Quantum Optics, a Miller Visiting Professor fellowship at the University of California Berkeley, and the Falling Walls Science Breakthrough of the Year Award in Physical Sciences. In 2023, Folman was one of a few researchers selected to receive an award from the Gordon and Betty Moore, Simons, John Templeton and Alfred P. Sloan Foundations for tabletop physics that could transform our understanding of the universe. He has authored or coauthored hundreds of papers in journals such as Physical Review Letters and Science, and his work has been featured in QuantaMagazine, PhysicsWorld, and PhysicsToday, among others. In addition to his work in science and technology, Folman is a human rights, peace, and environmental activist.  

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