{"product_id":"beautiful-particulars-david-weinberger-9780262054867","title":"Beautiful Particulars: How Ai's Attention to the Smallest of Differences Is Reshaping Our Biggest Ideas","description":"\u003cb\u003eA fresh and eye-opening new explanation of AI--and how its focus on specifics is changing our ideas about ourselves and our world. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eFrom a Harvard researcher, philosopher, entrepreneur, former comedy writer, and bestselling author. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAmid the clamor about AI, \u003ci\u003eBeautiful Particulars\u003c\/i\u003e poses a unique question: Not how our use of AI will change what we do, but how the idea of AI may already be subtly, yet fundamentally, reshaping how we think about ourselves and our world. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn clear, engaging, and even humorous prose, David Weinberger offers a new perspective on how machine learning works and how it may already be changing our basic and deepest ideas. Through lively examples, he shows that AI's success--with all its risks and dangers--is taking us past our millennia of reliance on laws and principles by revealing what morality, free will, creativity, causality, knowledge, and even reality itself look like now that we're able to let the particulars speak their tiny truths \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe author poses questions not usually asked: What does a coin look like to AI? When AI gives you evidence that the Earth is round, why are its own reasons for saying that so different? Why does an AI image generator create a \"selfie\" of ancient Aztec warriors with broad smiles that it \"believes\" are historically unlikely? If AI becomes conscious but bodiless, could it still make good moral decisions? Why is the world so much better at being causal than AI could ever \"understand\"? How does AI show us that genuine creativity is not about a \"spark\" but about moments that feel right? And how can you take the temperature of a joke? \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eBeautiful Particulars\u003c\/i\u003e offers a new--and hopeful--perspective on how machine learning works, and how that's already changing how we understand what it means to be human in the age of AI.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e David Weinberger\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0262054868\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780262054867\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e MIT Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 11\/03\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 184\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover","brand":"David Weinberger","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":48460334596351,"sku":"9780262054867","price":27.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_cec30d97-c1e9-41ef-9979-bbc612239f88.jpg?v=1777414068","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/beautiful-particulars-david-weinberger-9780262054867","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}