Top AI books recommended by experts

At MentorCruise, we are all about making the most out of the experience of others. As part of that, we've connected and asked dozens of experts and professionals about their favourite AI books – and here are the answers.

Table of Contents

Fundamentals of AI

Understanding the concepts of AI starts with understanding the fundamentals. On your way to mastery, it's crucial for you to understand how certain concepts were derived, and why things work like they do. Starting with these resources is the best way to do so.

The Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence

What happens when artificial intelligence saturates political life and depletes the planet? How is AI shaping our understanding of ourselves and our societies? Drawing on more than a decade of research, award‑winning scholar Kate Crawford reveals how AI is a technology of extraction: from the minerals drawn from the earth to the labor pulled from low-wage information workers to the data taken …

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The Singularity Is Nearer: When We Merge with AI

Since it was first published in 2005, Ray Kurzweil’s The Singularity Is Near and its vision of an exponential future have spawned a worldwide movement. Kurzweil's predictions about technological advancements have largely come true, with concepts like AI, intelligent machines, and biotechnology now widely familiar to the public.

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Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans

Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans is a 2019 nonfiction book by Santa Fe Institute professor Melanie Mitchell. The book provides an overview of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, and argues that people tend to overestimate the abilities of artificial intelligence.

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AI 2041: Ten Visions for Our Future

AI 2041 by Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Qiufan explores how artificial intelligence will shape the world in the next two decades. They present scenarios where AI could help solve some of our biggest problems, while also acknowledging the challenges and ethical implications of this technology.

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Fundamentals of Machine Learning for Predictive Data Analytics: Algorithms, Worked Examples, and Case Studies

Machine learning is often used to build predictive models by extracting patterns from large datasets. These models are used in predictive data analytics applications including price prediction, risk assessment, predicting customer behavior, and document classification.

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Reinforcement Learning

Reinforcement learning is an autonomous, self-teaching system that essentially learns by trial and error. It performs actions with the aim of maximizing rewards, or in other words, it is learning by doing in order to achieve the best outcomes.

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Additional AI Reading

These books are not required for you to learn AI, but they are highly recommended for you to deepen your knowledge.

Probabilistic Machine Learning: An Introduction

The book covers mathematical background (including linear algebra and optimization), basic supervised learning (including linear and logistic regression and deep neural networks), as well as more advanced topics (including transfer learning and unsupervised learning).

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Artificial Intelligence Engines: A Tutorial Introduction to the Mathematics of Deep Learning

In this richly illustrated book, key neural network learning algorithms are explained informally first, followed by detailed mathematical analyses. Topics include both historically important neural networks (e.g. perceptrons), and modern deep neural networks (e.g. generative adversarial networks).

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Deep Learning for Natural Language Processing: Creating Neural Networks with Python

Discover the concepts of deep learning used for natural language processing (NLP), with full-fledged examples of neural network models such as recurrent neural networks, long short-term memory networks, and sequence-2-sequence models. You’ll start by covering the mathematical prerequisites and the fundamentals of deep learning and NLP with practical examples. The first three chapters of the bo…

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On Intelligence

Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving.

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A Brief History of Artificial Intelligence: What It Is, Where We Are, and Where We Are Going

The somewhat ill-defined long-term aim of AI is to build machines that are conscious, self-aware, and sentient; machines capable of the kind of intelligent autonomous action that currently only people are capable of. As an AI researcher with 25 years of experience, professor Mike Wooldridge has learned to be obsessively cautious about such claims, while still promoting an intense optimism abou…

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Machine Learning for Beginners: Absolute Beginners Guide, Learn Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence from Scratch

Trace the development of Machine Learning from the early days of a computer learning how to play checkers, to machines able to beat world masters in chess and go. Understand how large data is so important to Machine Learning, and how the collection of massive amounts of data provides Machine Learning programmers with the information they need to developing learning algorithms.Simple examples w…

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Specializations and Deeper AI Knowledge

You've got your basics in order – time to move on to some advanced and specialized concepts. AI is evolving every day, these books can help you master it.

The Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World

In the world's top research labs and universities, the race is on to invent the ultimate learning algorithm: one capable of discovering any knowledge from data, and doing anything we want, before we even ask. In The Master Algorithm, Pedro Domingos lifts the veil to give us a peek inside the learning machines that power Google, Amazon, and your smartphone. He assembles a blueprint for the futu…

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Artificial Intelligence By Example: Acquire Advanced AI, Machine Learning, and Deep Learning Design Skills, 2nd Edition

AI has the potential to replicate humans in every field. Artificial Intelligence By Example, Second Edition serves as a starting point for you to understand how AI is built, with the help of intriguing and exciting examples. This book will make you an adaptive thinker and help you apply concepts to real-world scenarios. Using some of the most interesting AI examples, right from computer progra…

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This list is curated by MentorCruise and can include Amazon affiliate links. Have any other suggestions? Add here.

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