August Might Have Slipped Away into A Moment in Time Yet Here It Still Feels Like Summer: That’s Why It Took So Long for the September Reading List - 2023
What I was reading in 2023.
I managed to finish three books in September, yet I have to admit that I restarted the book about artificial intelligence several times. This was necessary because I needed to digest and inhale it, given the fact that I am simultaneously working on research about ‘AI and Marketing.’ Additionally, I am expressing concerns about the widespread usage of generative AI to cheat in education all the time but you all know this if you read my last article on the topic.
I feel it’s only fair to begin with a book on the hot topic of our time: the famous artificial intelligence.
1. The Age of AI and Our Human Future by Henry Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, and Daniel Huttenlocher
I don’t understand all of the negative feedback about this book. I believe people are negative because they don’t know the complete title of the book. From what I’ve read, everyone wanted to know more about AI, but the book is about AI and Our Human Future. Consequently, it is very well stated that AI is substantially more interfering with our humanity, or to put it another way, we are overly depended on artificial intelligence, and therefore the future of our human traits such as creativity, EQ, and so on, are very well explained with a lot of factors. Although it is a technological book, the language is quite clean, and each chapter is really published as a complete piece on its own.
It’s not my intention to reiterate all my concerns starting from the book, as I have an AI-Marketing article already awaiting me. However, I find solace in the fact that experts in the field, like the authors of this book, share similar concerns. The book emphasizes the tremendous advantage of technology in entrusting mundane tasks to AI, leveraging its superior data processing speed and capacity. Yet, it astutely points out the need for caution, particularly in the realm of generative AI. In areas requiring conceptual thinking and human insight beyond mere data processing, the book emphasizes the importance of human restraint. It highlights that what we perceive as miraculously making our lives easier is, in fact, limited to language processing. Unfortunately, a misconception persists that tools of generative AI are ‘reasoning machines.’ I hope that those captivated by AI will take a moment to reflect soon.
Finding balance in every aspect of life is crucial, and this is the ultimate message conveyed in the book. While artificial intelligence brings numerous benefits, especially in the scientific realm, we shouldn’t turn our backs on our characteristics, our own intelligence, and instincts, particularly in more social domains where my expertise lies. I might seem like an individual against technology, but as someone who loves and extensively uses technology, I am opposed to its misuse or the misuse of any invention. As a marketer, especially one focused on consumer behaviour, I believe I approach this with more emotion and value the individual nuances created by personal traits.
As a result, a wonderful book that narrates the position of AI in our lives with different examples, varied evaluations, and in a way that everyone can understand. It’s a work I’ve referred to many times. Anyone with a bit of interest should read it.
2. The Years by Annie Ernaux
This book? You understand why some authors receive prestigious awards like the Nobel. While reading the book, naturally, when I took a break and then resumed from where I left off, it felt like continuing my unfinished dream, as if I woke up in the middle of it.
I haven’t been much of a memoir reader, especially autobiographies are not usually my style. However, this book stands out as the author narrates her memories from a significant period like 1941–2006 without using the ‘I’ language, presenting it more like a sociological evaluation. I can’t express it exactly because whenever I admire a work this much, I struggle to choose the right words.
If there were such a term as sociological memoir in literature, this book would have been a wonderful representative of that genre, that’s what I mean (Maybe there is, I don’t know, I am sorry).
It’s such a Parisian, poetic, and magical piece that it led me to a lot of introspection while reading, and the fact that we still experience the same problems and contradictions as women, humans, and citizens made me think a lot. I don’t know how accurate it is to say this, but the book is something for everyone who is afraid of the end of life and they will find themselves in. At one point, I even thought, ‘Is my aged self in a parallel universe speaking in my head?’ It was a little frightening to have so many similar thoughts with Annie Ernaux. I’ve marked, highlighted, and colored in so many sentences of this masterpiece, and I know I’ll come back and read them in different phases of my life.
Apart from that, Alison Strayer did an incredible job. Not a single word feels awkward while reading, and even though it’s a different language from the one it was written in, it penetrates so deeply into the hearts of so many people…
Please read this book. It’s a truly beautiful piece.
3. People From My Neighbourhood by Hiromi Kawakami
After the fourth glass of Chardonnay, my dreams literally turn into the stories written in this book.
Truly, a book that I don’t know what to say or how I feel about. I adore Japanese literature and its unique, simple charm. When I bought this, I didn’t make a research or try to understand the story, I was basically thinking like a true Turk: ‘A Japanese is a smart person,’ and therefore I bought it. I can’t say I regret it; it’s very easy and a book that can be finished in a day.
It should be around 120 pages. However, it contains very short interconnected stories of 2–3 pages each, and in some, you feel like you’ve grasped the moral of the story, but then some strange stories start that some might find absurd, and it ends on the back page. Some stories could definitely have been longer, and some, while trying to add a touch of magic, could have avoided the edge of absurdity.
Not really my style, but a book that makes you read on. It’s quite neutral for me, considering I gave it a 3 out of 5 on Goodreads.
