The books we're highlighting this week all focus on an inflection point. Kevin Roose covers the most widely discussed and debated development of today, artificial intelligence, going beyond the talking heads and talking points to give us a deeper perspective of the technology transforming so much of our lives. Arian Simone tackles the current backlash against DEI efforts and how to keep progress from stalling in her "'playbook' directing entrepreneurs, business leaders, and policymakers toward expanding opportunity and building lasting economic prosperity." Celeste Headlee gives us a historical perspective on another era of freedom fighters—including her great-grandmother—"who believed freedom was inextricably linked with learning and free expression, and who worked tirelessly to secure access to literacy and education for a generation of children born into freedom." And finally, David Byrne delivers a book about inflection points for ideas, specifically "why ideas go dormant is why they reawaken" to "light new seeds for our future breakthroughs." 

The AGI Chronicles: The Inside Story of the Race to Create an Artificial Superintelligence by Kevin Roose, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux

This is the story of the twenty-first century’s Manhattan Project—the race to create artificial general intelligence.

For the last decade, a handful of AI companies have been racing to build the most powerful technology in history: artificial general intelligence, or AGI—a computer system capable of outdoing humans at almost anything. Some of them hoped AGI would cure diseases and heal the planet. Others feared it could kill everyone on Earth. They decided to build it anyway.

Kevin Roose’s The AGI Chronicles is the definitive, behind-the-scenes account of the trillion-dollar sprint to create AGI. Drawing on more than 150 interviews with insiders at OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind, as well as never-before-published company documents and research memos, Roose reconstructs the most consequential decade in tech history. He takes us inside the rooms where researchers watch large language models learn to talk, reason, and code at superhuman speed. He brings us to the White House, where top officials grapple with a technology that is improving too fast to understand, let alone regulate. He offers new details on the disagreements that led the founders of Anthropic to defect from OpenAI, and fresh reporting on Sam Altman’s dramatic firing—and equally dramatic reinstatement—as CEO. He reveals the inside story of Google’s frantic attempt to catch up to the AI frontier. And he ushers us inside the San Francisco AI scene, where “accelerationists” in hacker houses and “doomers” at AI safety summits battle each other for the upper hand.

With rigorous reporting and page-turning suspense, The AGI Chronicles reveals the true story of the most high-stakes technological quest in human history—an audacious attempt to create a new, alien form of intelligence that could either save humanity or destroy it.

Fearless Freedom: A Manifesto for Unlocking Wealth and Equality for All by Arian Simone, published by Storehouse Voices

The accomplished CEO, investor, and African queen shares the remarkable story behind the Fearless Fund's landmark legal battle while translating a roadmap from civil rights and African independence movements of the 1960s into a modern "playbook" directing entrepreneurs, business leaders, and policymakers toward expanding opportunity and building lasting economic prosperity.

When Arian Simone received news of a federal lawsuit against her and the “Fearless Fund”—her venture capital firm whose most well-known grant funded Black women-owned businesses in need—she was shocked. Not only because the principles on which the fund was established—equity and diversity, especially—were the new cornerstones in a post-George-Floyd-America, but because the plaintiffs, who had just won a Supreme Court case against affirmative action in college admissions—built their argument using the 1866 Civil Rights Act: a law put in place for formerly enslaved persons to enter into contracts the same as whites.

In Fearless Freedom, Arian discusses how everyone—whether you’re a business owner, a politician, an educator, or someone simply navigating their own path in life—has something to gain from creating a more inclusive world. And with lessons imparted by her parents, informed by her top-tier international education, and refined in the flames of political and civil turmoil—Arian expertly delivers a roadmap for the change we know we need and the actions change requires.

In the context of financial freedom for all, fearless action is our greatest tool in dismantling the barriers that hold others back and establishing wealth for future generations.

Cover for Freedom's Daughters

Freedom's Daughters: How a Generation of Black Women Resisted Oppression Through Literacy and Education by Celeste Headlee, published by Flatiron Books

From bestselling author Celeste Headlee, an urgent and eye-opening story of the women who risked everything to ensure a generation of Black Americans had the right to read.

In the waning days of the antebellum South, millions of African Americans were suddenly released from enslavement. But they soon realized that “freedom” was not free; they were subject to hundreds of laws aimed at preventing them from voting and, in many cases, learning. Were it not for the work of an exceptional group of women—activists, educators, mothers, organizers—the foundations for Black education might never have been laid.

With Freedom's Daughters, Headlee set out to write into the record book the untold stories of these remarkable women. As a journalist who spent her career in public media, Headlee has long championed unheard voices and sought to tell the stories of those whose contributions have gone unacknowledged. But this project was fueled by an even deeper connection: Carrie Still Shepperson—one of the most important figures in this fight—is Headlee's great grandmother and one of the biggest influences in her life.

Now, after a decade of research spanning personal diaries to public records, Freedom’s Daughters paints a vivid portrait of figures intentionally erased from history, recognizing the work of a generation of Black women who believed freedom was inextricably linked with learning and free expression, and who worked tirelessly to secure access to literacy and education for a generation of children born into freedom.

By turns shocking, inspiring, and deeply moving, Freedom’s Daughters is Headlee’s impeccably researched journey to better understand her family history and herself, and a timely examination of the influence and power of unfettered access to schools, libraries, and higher education.

Sleeping Beauties: Why Good Ideas Go Dormant and How They Wake Up by David Byrne, published by Penguin Press

From incomparable creative force David Byrne, a brilliant and inspiring reckoning with how breakthroughs across the arts and sciences get forgotten, and how they get rediscovered.

It’s nice to believe in a meritocracy of ideas—genius is always recognized, innovation always seized upon and rewarded. In fact, so many of the people we now acknowledge as the world’s great creators initially got little traction for their work. It faded out, and only later—often much later—did it somehow come roaring back to life.

Discoveries as diverse as dark matter, lichen, and continental drift . . . technologies from solar panels to the steam engine . . . artists from Bach to Bruegel, Vermeer to Melville . . . all, David Byrne shows us, were sleeping beauties. Why did they fall asleep? How did they wake back up? Ranging across centuries and the full scope of human endeavor, Byrne arrives at important conclusions that serve as a lens for bringing to light new seeds for our future breakthroughs.

Sleeping Beauties is a master class in how not to be blind to the next great thing. Several times throughout history, the shock of the new landed like a blow on vested interests and entrenched views, putting innovation on hold. Suppression emerged from pushback, the absence of key supporters, or simply a lack of complementary economic conditions.

But more important even than why ideas go dormant is why they reawaken. Again and again, Byrne shows, someone from a different discipline breaks into the silo. Frequently it’s someone open to metaphorical thinking, to the counterintuitive. Hierarchies and taxonomies have their place, but they can reward insiders and punish outsiders. Oftentimes, it is the winds of change that blow away the sand that has buried momentous ideas.

Sleeping Beauties is humbling but it is also remarkably hopeful. These stories add up to a compass that leads us to the courage to try new things and the wisdom to embrace them. In a time that can seem all too dark, it’s a powerful source of freely available light, delightful in itself and fit for all our human endeavors.