Don’t know where to start with AI? Kevin Roose’s new book has answers

The current AI craze gained momentum in 2022, when the launch of ChatGPT allowed anyone with an internet connection to easily interact with a computer and receive comprehensible responses. While AI researchers had been working on large language models (LLMs) long before, the public's access to these models only became possible in 2022. Kevin Roose's new book, The AGI Chronicles, provides a comprehensive account of the past decade in the development of AI, from the founding of OpenAI to the present day.

Roose interviews over 150 insiders at leading AI companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind, offering excellent access to those involved in the field. He argues that the race to build artificial general intelligence (AGI) is the 21st-century equivalent of the Manhattan Project, which aimed to build a nuclear weapon during World War II.

However, Roose's AGI-pilled perspective shows that AI will achieve general, human-level intelligence in the near future, which may align with AI company narratives more than desired.

Despite this lens, The AGI Chronicles remains an excellent historical read, detailing the creation of OpenAI by Altman, Musk, and others, and how Anthropic was formed to be a more safety-first AI company. The book also explores the AI safety movement and its various factions, explaining the conflict between AI executives warning about AI destruction and simultaneously seeking billions of dollars to build it.

Roose's book is well-rounded, offering both a historical and technical perspective on modern AI, making it a valuable primer on the field. While it doesn't cover every event of the past year, it still provides an impressive overview of the rapid advancements in AI up until early 2026.