Nexus - A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI

Author: Yuval Noah Harari Publication Date: September 2024

2025-03-20 2 min read Sincheenz

I did the audio version of the book. Yuval Harari is an excellent storyteller and always leaves you with an afterthought. Nexus is meant to be a reflection on where humanity is heading, especially with the rise of AI, disinformation, and global instability. But to be honest, I didn’t enjoy it as much. It felt like a lot of repetition and basically a recap of his earlier books. The same themes from Sapiens and Homo Deus kept popping up, just re-worded. Continue reading

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Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology

Author: Chris Miller Publication Date: October 2022

2025-02-20 3 min read Sincheenz

Initially promoted by the U.S. military after World War II to stay ahead of the Soviets in the arms race, semiconductors later became commercialized and embedded in our everyday gadgets. The journey of chip technology is truly fascinating. While innovation and advancements have surged, so have the choke points. This technology has driven globalization and progress, yet it’s unsettling to realize how few companies control such a critical industry. The invention of the transistor by physicists like Shockley, Bardeen, and Brattain, and its commercialization by pioneers like Noyce, Moore, Kilby, and others, is a remarkable story. Continue reading

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The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century's Greatest Dilemma

Author: Mustafa Suleyman, Michael Bhaskar Publication Date: September 2023

2025-02-04 3 min read Sincheenz

Last month, I reviewed a book called AI Snake Oil, published in September 2024, which discusses the hype surrounding AI and argues that the distrust and fear expressed by several prominent figures and scientists are unwarranted. This book, The Coming Wave, was written a year earlier, in September 2023. After exploring both sides of the argument—one dismissing AI as unlikely to become all-consuming, more intelligent, or more capable than humans, and the other outlining various use cases where things could spiral out of control—I find both perspectives valid. Continue reading

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AI Snake Oil - What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can’t, and How to Tell the Difference

Author: Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor Publication Date: September 2024

2025-01-12 4 min read Sincheenz

In the introduction, the authors present a witty definition of AI “AI is whatever hasn’t been done yet.” This sets the tone of this book, highlighting the existing hype around AI and the misconceptions that exist. Though the definition of AI is still not universally agreed upon, the authors pose three questions to qualify a product or solution as AI, serving as a starting point for this book: Does the task require creative effort or training for a human to perform? Continue reading

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Homo Deus - A Brief History of Tomorrow

Author: Yuval Noah Harari Publication Date: May 2015

2024-07-20 3 min read Sincheenz

Homo Deus or Human Gods is a book that discusses what would follow us Homo sapiens as species and the consequences we should be prepared for. It’s an interesting, thought-provoking, and at times, an absurd read. Published in 2016, before the Covid-19 crisis, the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and the recent intensification Israel-Palestine conflict, the book confirms the fragility and uncertainty of the world we live in. Yuval Harari claimed then less than a decade back, that the future will only focus on intellectual wars rather than armed conflicts. Continue reading

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