THE MANIAC by Benjamin Labatut

I had to put my thinking cap on to read this book.  It centers around the life of John von Neumann, a brilliant physicist and mathematician who worked on the Manhatttan Project and who also co-wrote a book with major implications for the field of economics.  Each chapter in this novel features a different von Neumann acquaintance who sheds light on the man’s personality and intellectual gifts.    The title of the book could be a sort of double entendre, given that von Neumann could be very obsessive about his theories, but he also developed a computer whose acronym was MANIAC.  This book is not as enjoyable as When We Cease to Understand the World, but the last few chapters rescue the rest of the book, although they have little to do with von Neumann.  The last section, entitled “LEE or The Delusions of Artificial Intelligence,” focuses on computer programs written to play chess, and, more importantly, the Chinese game of Go.  The chapters in which an AI program called AlphaGo challenges the best Go player in the world, Lee Sedol, to a 5-game match are fascinating, even to someone like myself who knows nothing about Go.  We get a glimpse into the emotional psyche of Lee Sedol in this last section to about the same degree as we witnessed von Neumann’s reaction to his own successes and frustrations, even though the latter’s story occupies the majority of the book.