a book

The Book of Why

Name: The Book of Why
Rating: 5 (8 reviews)
Author: Judea Pearl
ISBN: 9780465097609

Judea Pearl · 2018 · 418 pages

A Turing Award-winning computer scientist and statistician shows how understanding causality has revolutionized science and will revolutionize artificial intelligence "Correlation is not causation." This mantra, chanted by scientists for more than a century, has led to a virtual prohibition on causal talk. Today, that taboo is dead. The causal revolution, instigated by Judea Pearl and his colleagues, has cut through a century of confusion and established causality--the study of cause and effect--on a firm scientific basis. His work explains how we can know easy things, like whether it was rain or a sprinkler that made a sidewalk wet; and how to answer hard questions, like whether a drug cured an illness. Pearl's work enables us to know not just whether one thing causes another: it lets us explore the world that is and the worlds that could have been. It shows us the essence of human thought and key to artificial intelligence. Anyone who wants to understand either needs The Book of Why.

recommended by 8 people

sourced from public statements

Keith Rabois
“@Jabaluck @jasndoc Yes, indeed. Start with the Book of Why by Judeah Pearl.”↗
D.A. Wallach
“@EricTopol @yudapearl @bschoelkopf @MPI_IS I love @yudapearl 's book so much! Profound, heterodox.”↗
Fei-Fei Li
“"@yudapearl , the “visual intelligence ladder” is definitely inspired by the beautiful causality ladder in the Book of Why! Thank you for your inspiration!"”↗
Nando de Freitas
“Interested in ethics and AI, (1) please read The Book of Why by @yudapearl and Enlightenment Now by @sapinker. (2) Follow @black_in_ai, @WiMLworkshop and @DeepIndaba. (3) Make sure that when you choose to discuss AI in China, you include people from there! @kaifulee”↗
Bill Gates
Naval Ravikant
Ryan Shea
John Fish