MANIAC

In his new book, Chilean writer Benjamín Labatut continues to develop the ideas of his acclaimed novel "When We Ceased to Understand the World" — a bestseller about the dark aspects of great scientific achievements — once again addressing the symbiosis of nonfiction and prose.
The author gives central importance to the biography of the child prodigy mathematician John von Neumann, a participant in the Manhattan Project and the creator of the architecture of computing machines, on which one of the first computers — MANIAC — was built.
The story of von Neumann is preceded by a tale of the tragic fate of Paul Ehrenfest, and the final chapters are dedicated to the fateful Go tournament between Lee Sedol and the AlphaGo program. A series of contradictory events from the world of science — from the creation of the hydrogen bomb to the birth of supercomputers — that evoke delight in some and instill horror in others culminates in the stunning victory of artificial intelligence over humans, forcing readers to ponder where technology has brought us and will lead us.