The Worlds I See
The moving memoir of a scientist coming of age as an immigrant in America who finds her calling at the forefront of the AI revolution.
Wired called Dr. Fei-Fei Li “one of a tiny group of scientists—a group perhaps small enough to fit around a kitchen table—who are responsible for AI’s recent remarkable advances.”
Known to the world as the creator of ImageNet, a key catalyst of modern artificial intelligence, Dr. Li has spent more than two decades at the forefront of the field. But her career in science was improbable from the start. As immigrants, her family faced a difficult transition from China’s middle class to American poverty. And their lives were made all the harder as they struggled to care for her ailing mother, who was working tirelessly to help them all gain a foothold in their new land.
Fei-Fei’s adolescent knack for physics endured, however, and positioned her to make a crucial contribution to the breakthrough we now call AI, placing her at the center of a global transformation. Over the last decades, her work has brought her face-to-face with the extraordinary possibilities—and the extraordinary dangers—of the technology she loves.
The Worlds I See is a story of science in the first person, documenting one of the century’s defining moments from the inside. It provides a riveting story of a scientist at work and a thrillingly clear explanation of what artificial intelligence actually is—and how it came to be. Emotionally raw and intellectually uncompromising, this book is a testament not only to the passion required for even the most technical scholarship but also to the curiosity forever at its heart.
Reviews
I don’t know what I was quite expecting but Dr. Li’s journey is the most amazing explanation of AI and its future potential. Even if you think you’re an expert, this story fills in the history of the development of AI from its humble beginnings as data sets to the world stage it’s now on. More than anything else, I feel like it provides a practitioners basis for the use of AI. It’s not just definitions or explanations of the technology but the philosophy behind it. That philosophy is important not just to understand and utilize AI in the way it’s most effective but in ways that lead to better outcomes. Plainly stated - Dr. Li creates a human-centered rubric for judging AI’s potential in life sciences, in business, in creative fields and more. I feel like it should be required reading for innovators and explorers of new technology.
By downtownguy
Well written and a heart warming story of Dr. Li’s life as she details how she became a leader in the field while sharing her personal story.
By Young Exec
Weaving her personal story with the story of modern AI, I came away from this book both inspired and energized. I can’t wait to see where this field leads, and I hope we see more contributors like Dr. Li.
By Kyle Olivo