Anthony C. Vila

Anthony C. Vila is not an AI researcher, computer scientist, or academic. That is partly why he wrote this book.

Vila came to artificial intelligence from the other side of the screen: as a user trying to build things with it. His background is in sales, entrepreneurship, and business building rather than software engineering. When generative AI made it possible for someone without a traditional technical background to create software, research markets, develop business systems, and tackle problems that once required specialized expertise, he became an aggressive adopter of the technology.

Then he encountered the problem at the center of Almost Right: AI could produce work faster than he could independently verify it. As the systems became more capable, their mistakes became harder to distinguish from competent work.

That question grew into an investigation spanning software development, medicine, law, aviation, education, labor economics, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence itself.

Vila does not argue that artificial intelligence should be stopped. He uses it. His argument is narrower: the more powerful our machines become, the more important it becomes to preserve independent human judgment—and the people capable of exercising it.