Artificial Intelligence gets a lot of talk these days. Most feel like it’s a ticket to a better life for most everyone, but there are certainly drawbacks to AI and this book, Nexus, explores some of these potential pitfalls while also explaining how our communication, from the ancient past to the present, led us to where we are today.Nexus starts out by taking us back a couple millennia and further, explaining how bureaucracies and storytelling shaped society in the past and how these things still shape us in the present, but in different ways, especially in the way that communication is delivered. The first part of the book focuses on the distant past, while the second and third parts center on what lies ahead. The best parts of the book are the last two sections, as they talk about the present and future and some of the potential downsides to artificial intelligence in our increasingly digital world.This book is somewhat unsettling and many of its warnings present a stark picture of what could happen if artificial intelligence is abused. Most of us, for example, are already aware of the problems caused by social media algorithms and how they can be used to create fake stories which are then sent to people who are most likely to digest them and believe them. We have already seen this happen on a tragic level in Myanmar where Facebook was relied on as a valued news source, even though it was spreading false information that led to violence. But this is potentially only the beginning. The book mentions many other potential causes of trouble, like the use of social credit scores to try to improve human behavior. China has already latched on to social credit scores and there is no reason to think that other nations will not follow suit.Nexus does get you thinking about artificial intelligence, technology, and how these things could negatively impact our lives. The book raises many moral questions that are not always easy to answer. If artificial intelligence really catches on, what could happen to certain jobs? Will government step in and retrain people who need to find a new job because artificial intelligence has eliminated their position? Or what about responsibility? If something bad happens due to artificial intelligence, who should be held accountable? The computer program or the person who wrote it and distributed it? These are not easy questions to answer, and I like that Nexus produces so many talking points and encourages debate.The one issue I have with Nexus is that it tends to be tentative and hesitant in its predictions. It doesn’t make its projections with strong conviction. Rather, it often uses tentative words like could, might, and may. This makes you wonder if any of these predictions are all that likely to become reality and that maybe we have nothing to worry about after all. I think the book chose this path because, well, the future is always uncertain and there is no way to really know what will happen. There is bound to be some negative consequences of artificial intelligence, but I remain hopeful that the net benefits to society will be positive and that governments will step in to regulate it sufficiently, to eliminate most of the negative results.Artificial intelligence is on the rise. Information networks have always existed, but they are quite different from how they were in the past and they will continue to evolve as technology progresses. Nexus is a very good book about AI and its potential for both good and bad impact on society. The book can be a little frightening, but it’s the type of wake up call we all need, and it encourages everyone to take whatever action they can with AI to minimize the bad and encourage the good.