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Samuel Fitoussi

Readings

A selection of recommended nonfiction.

Recent books that shaped my thinking on AI and technology

11

  • If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies

    Eliezer Yudkowsky, Nate Soares

    The case for P(doom) = 100%. Very intellectually stimulating

    9/10

  • La parole aux machines

    Thibaut Giraud

    An examination of how large language models work and the technical and philosophical questions raised by machine intelligence

    9/10

  • Ultra-intelligence

    Aymeric Roucher

    How neural networks work, why scaling laws matter, and how Europe should respond

    9/10

  • The Infinity Machine

    Sebastian Mallaby

    The inside story of DeepMind

    8/10

  • The Power Law

    Sebastian Mallaby

    A history of venture capital

    8/10

  • The Scaling Era: An Oral History of AI, 2019–2025

    Dwarkesh Patel

    Conversations with the world's top AI researchers on scaling, alignment, model capabilities and the human condition after AGI is achieved

    8/10

  • Why Machines Learn

    Anil Ananthaswamy

    The mathematical foundations of AI, from early perceptrons to the transformer architecture

    8/10

  • The Maniac

    Benjamin Labatut

    A portrait of John von Neumann and a meditation on scientific progress, from the atomic bomb to AlphaGo

    7/10

  • Zero to One

    Peter Thiel

    Why competition is for losers

    7/10

  • The Hard Thing About Hard Things

    Ben Horowitz

    Company building lessons from Ben Horowitz

    7/10

  • Thinking Machine

    Stephen Witt

    The story of how Nvidia became a 5 trillion dollar company

    7/10

All time Hall of Fame (all topics)

13

  • The Blank Slate

    Steven Pinker

    The best and most profound book on human nature

    10/10

  • La connaissance inutile

    Jean François Revel

    An analysis of why modern democracies, despite unprecedented access to information, systematically reject facts in favor of ideology and self-deception

    10/10

  • Intellectuals and Society

    Thomas Sowell

    How societies form beliefs, design policies, and distribute the costs of error. Sowell's best book.

    10/10

  • Orwell: Essays (Everyman’s Library)

    George Orwell

    Timeless and funny essays on fanaticism, ideology, intellectual dishonesty, conformism, language, nationalism, free-speech, propaganda, "pacifism" and human self-deception

    10/10

  • Enlightenment Now

    Steven Pinker

    Why the world has become better, and what we can do to ensure it keeps getting better

    9/10

  • The Enigma of reason

    Hugo Mercier & Dan Sperber

    An evolutionary argument that human reason developed primarily for social persuasion and justification rather than solitary truth-seeking

    9/10

  • The Ape that Understood the Universe

    Steve Stewart-Williams

    How natural and sexual selection made us the strange, intelligent, and self-aware apes we are today

    9/10

  • The Elephant in the Brain

    Kevin Simler, Robin Hanson

    How hidden motives and self-deception shape human behavior across everyday life and politics

    8/10

  • Fools, Frauds and Firebrands

    Roger Scruton

    A critical examination of the ideas of Sartre, Foucault, Habermas (and other icons of the New Left) and their influence on Western intellectual life

    8/10

  • Free women, free men

    Camille Paglia

    A defense of personal responsibility against victim culture and academic dogma

    8/10

  • The strange death of Europe

    Douglas Murray

    How Europe is losing itself through a reluctance to confront difficult trade-offs

    8/10

  • Mémoires

    Raymond Aron

    The history of the 20th century seen through the eyes of Europe's most lucid thinker

    8/10

  • The Righteous Mind

    Jonathan Haidt

    How moral intuitions come first and reasoning comes second, and why humans are wired for tribal loyalty

    8/10