Artificial Intelligence: How It Works and What It Means For Us

The acclaimed bestseller, now in English, from award-winning author Inga Strümke and translator Lena Vatne Bjørlo!

Where does computing stop and thinking begin? And what happens when machines that learn start shaping the way we live, work, and think? AI researcher Inga Strümke tackles these questions and more in this timely and accessible examination of the past, present, and future of AI.

Artificial intelligence is no longer confined to science fiction. It recommends what we watch, curates what we read, and even drafts what we write. Yet for all its influence, AI remains a mystery to many of us. How does it really work? And what happens when we place more and more of our lives in the hands of machines that “think”?

Physicist and AI researcher Inga Strümke pulls back the curtain on the most transformative technology of our time in this captivating introduction to artificial intelligence. Writing for curious minds from all backgrounds, she traces the history of AI from early chess-playing machines to modern neural networks and language models. Along the way, she explains the principles behind machine learning with a balance of clarity and depth. Strümke explores the promise of AI breakthroughs like AlphaFold, which cracked one of biology’s greatest puzzles—and spotlights the risks of biased decision-making, misinformation, and autonomous systems that sometimes fail with deadly consequences. She raises urgent questions about ethics, responsibility, and regulation: Who is accountable when AI systems make mistakes? How do we prevent algorithms from reinforcing prejudice? And how do we ensure that AI serves humanity’s highest aspirations rather than its narrowest interests?

Winner of the Brage Prize for Norwegian nonfiction, Machines That Think is an essential guide to artificial intelligence—and a call to shape the future before it shapes us.

Inga Strümke is a Norwegian physicist specializing in artificial intelligence and machine learning. She was born in 1989 in Gummersbach, Germany, and grew up in Narvik, Norway. Strümke holds a master's degree in theoretical physics from Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and a doctorate in particle physics from the University of Bergen. She is currently an associate professor at NTNU.

Strümke is also known for her work in AI ethics and has received an award for science communication from the Norwegian Research Council. She published Maskiner som tenker in 2023. The book was recognized with the Brageprisen, a prestigious Norwegian literature prize.

Lena Vatne Bjørlo is a senior analyst at Oxford Research. Lena has a PhD in algorithmic marketing and AI ethics from NTNU and her research focuses on the relationship between humans and technology.