How does artificial intelligence learn, create content, and begin to carry out tasks? And what does that change about work, the economy, and everyday life?Artificial Intelligence: From Machines that Learn to Machines that Act explains how AI works and what its growing capabilities mean for society, in language accessible to general readers. It begins with the fundamentals and progresses to generative AI and autonomous agents: systems that can use tools, plan steps, and perform tasks with varying levels of human supervision.Across 64 chapters, readers explore machine learning, neural networks, and deep learning, alongside large language models and the technologies behind AI-generated text, images, audio, and video. The book also explains the role of data, chips, and data centers, revealing the resources and costs involved in building these systems.What happens when these capabilities enter businesses, schools, hospitals, and governments? The book examines workplace automation, the future of professions, applications in science and medicine, and the economic and geopolitical competition for control of artificial intelligence. Education, culture, surveillance, disinformation, and military uses are also part of the discussion.Limitations receive as much attention as advances. Hallucinations, bias, security failures, and problems of control explain why a convincing AI response is not always reliable-and why delegating a task requires more than getting a good answer.For readers who want to understand artificial intelligence from its foundations to its effects on society, this book offers a broad account that requires no technical background. It provides a basis for following developments, assessing promises, and recognizing where human judgment remains essential.
