Scary Smart

The Future of Artificial Intelligence and How You Can Save Our World

Mo Gawdat author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Pan Macmillan

Published:8th Dec '22

Should be back in stock very soon

Scary Smart cover

Scary Smart explains tech and why we need to pay attention to it. From Mo Gawdat, international bestselling author of Solve for Happy.

Scary Smart is an accessible blueprint for creating a harmonious future alongside AI, from the former Chief Business Officer at Google [X] and internationally bestselling author of Solve for Happy, Mo Gawdat.

A Sunday Times Business Book of the Year.

Scary Smart will teach you how to navigate the scary and inevitable intrusion of Artificial Intelligence, with an accessible blueprint for creating a harmonious future alongside AI. From Mo Gawdat, the former Chief Business Officer at Google [X] and bestselling author of Solve for Happy.


Technology is putting our humanity at risk to an unprecedented degree. This book is not for engineers who write the code or the policy makers who claim they can regulate it. This is a book for you. Because, believe it or not, you are the only one that can fix it. – Mo Gawdat

Artificial intelligence is smarter than humans. It can process information at lightning speed and remain focused on specific tasks without distraction. AI can see into the future, predict outcomes and even use sensors to see around physical and virtual corners. So why does AI frequently get it so wrong and cause harm?

The answer is us: the human beings who write the code and teach AI to mimic our behaviour. Scary Smart explains how to fix the current trajectory now, to make sure that the AI of the future can preserve our species. This book offers a blueprint, pointing the way to what we can do to safeguard ourselves, those we love, and the planet itself.

'No one ever regrets reading anything Mo Gawdat has written.' – Emma Gannon, author of The Multi-Hyphen Method and host of the podcast Ctrl Alt Delete

Mo Gawdat is my life guru. His writing, his ideas and his generosity in sharing them has changed my life for the better in so many ways. Everything he writes is an enlightening education in how to be human. -- Elizabeth Day
Mo is an exquisite writer and speaker with deep expertise of technology . . . This book will teach you how to navigate the scary and inevitable intrusion of AI as well as who really is in control. Us. -- Dr Rupy Aujla, MBBS, BSc, MRCGP, Founder of "The Doctor's Kitchen"
A proactive and bold read that provides the shake that humans need to take back our agency over AI, and therefore the fate of the world as we see it. -- Dr Camilla Pang, author of Explaining Humans: What Science Can Teach Us About Life, Love and Relationships
A brilliant mind . . . Mo takes us on a whirlwind exploration of the fast-approaching singularity, and offers a desperate last chance to have a say in the future of humanity. Read this book! -- Tim Ash, bestselling author of Unleash Your Primal Brain
No one ever regrets reading anything Mo Gawdat has written. -- Emma Gannon, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Multi-Hyphen Method and host of award-winning podcast Ctrl Alt Delete
Scary Smart is unlike anything I’ve ever read . . . What Mo does is help us analyze what it means to be human, by looking at what can or cannot happen with the rise of artificial intelligence. -- Poppy Jamie, author and founder of Happy Not Perfect

ISBN: 9781529077650

Dimensions: 197mm x 130mm x 22mm

Weight: 240g

336 pages