[Commlist] New book: The Shape of Thought - Reasoning in the Age of AI

Announcing a new publication from McGill-Queen's University Press:

*The Shape of Thought***

Reasoning in the Age of AI

*Richard H.R. Harper***

*https://mngbookshop.co.uk/9780228025740/the-shape-of-thought/ 
<https://mngbookshop.co.uk/9780228025740/the-shape-of-thought/>*

*__*

*20% Discount code*: LSMNGUP***

*Valid until 11:59 GMT, 31^st December 2025. Discount only applies to 
the MNG website.

'This book will be welcomed by anyone concerned or surprised that the 
definition of intelligence seems to be changing. Richard Harper is a 
wise and reassuring guide, placing recent anxieties over AI in the 
context of decades of technical change. /The Shape of Thought/ cements 
his reputation as one of the leading philosophers helping us to 
understand everyday technologies, now and for the future.' - Alan 
Blackwell, University of Cambridge

/'The Shape of Thought/ is an excellent and powerful work. Harper 
tackles human-AI interaction from a conceptual, practical, and 
historical perspective, always with a sharp focus on the human use and 
experience of technology.' - Margot Brereton, Queensland University of 
Technology

Artificial intelligence (AI) consists of a dazzling set of computational 
tools that few fully understand. From our cars to our homes to how we 
socialize and work, AI is everywhere and makes life so much better. It 
might irritate in some instances but mostly it helps. Or it seems to. 
Yet AI developers have an unusually narrow perspective on intelligence, 
reducing all judgments to a calculus. Machines excel at this form of 
intelligence, but it is not how most people define the word. While this 
narrowing has provided useful direction for the development of 
computers, Richard Harper argues, it also constrains what people are 
capable of. When we reach for AI to help us unwind, connect with others, 
or even create art, it's not analytical intelligence that we are after. 
The human behaviours that AI seeks to supplement are shaped as much by 
mood, morals, indolence, and interrelation as they are by calculation. 
Drawing on three decades of inquiry, Harper reveals that when we are 
misled about what AI cannot do, we fail to see what it can. /The Shape 
of Thought/ shows how to break free from this narrow view. By better 
understanding the many different things that people achieve with 
computers, we can improve and diversify AI to allow for richer, more 
beneficial human-computer interaction.

*Richard H.R. Harper*is director of the Centre for Material Social 
Futures at Lancaster University, visiting professor in the College of 
Science at the University of Swansea, and the author of several 
award-winning books.

*McGill-Queen's University Press**| 14 October 2025 | 264pp 
| 9780228025740 | HB | £23.99**

*Price subject to change.

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