Updated · June 2026
The Genesis of
Intelligence.
The complete history of artificial intelligence: from the first dreams of thinking machines to the technology reshaping our world.
The great shift
1956 → 2017 → 2022. Three dates, a single story: how thought finally came to inhabit matter.
For sixty years, artificial intelligence advanced in fits and starts. Then, in 2017, an idea of disarming simplicity, predict the next word, produced machines that seem to understand.
From the Transformer to ChatGPT, a handful of years took AI from the lab to the industrial reality that is reshaping, week after week, how we work, heal, create and wage war.
A single thread runs through the whole book: the more capable these systems become, the sharper the question of their control becomes. They are two sides of the same coin.
The Index
Six parts, twenty-five chapters.
- I
FOUNDATIONS: UNDERSTANDING AI BEFORE THE LLMS
The history before LLMs, the mechanics of learning, the Transformer revolution.
03 chapters→ - II
THE ERA OF LARGE MODELS
Large language models, world models, agents and the map of the players.
04 chapters→ - III
HARDWARE AND INFRASTRUCTURE
Chips, data centres, local AI, energy: the engine room.
03 chapters→ - IV
THE GREAT CONVERGENCES
Blockchain, quantum computing, robotics: where the technologies meet.
03 chapters→ - V
AI IN THE REAL WORLD
Health, work, law, defence, creation: AI at work in the real world.
09 chapters→ - VI
THE EXISTENTIAL STAKES
Alignment, governance and the dizzying question of the future.
03 chapters→
The eye of precision: the GeneseAI method
One method,
three commitments.
To offer, in a single document, a complete and honest understanding of what artificial intelligence is: where it comes from, how it works, what it makes possible and what it threatens.
- 01Two levels of reading
- Every concept is first explained “in plain terms,” with images and analogies. Then, under the hood, boxes open up the architectures, the intuitive mathematics and the engineering trade-offs. Read one level, or both.
- 02Up to date: June 2026
- Dated facts (models, deployments, regulations) are verified as of June 2026 and sourced in the appendices. When a topic is uncertain or debated, the course says so rather than ruling unduly.
- 03Editorial neutrality
- AI is a geopolitical subject. American, Chinese and European players are treated on equal footing. Opposing arguments (techno-optimism versus caution, openness versus closure) are presented without bias.
61,886 words, verified and sourced
Frequently asked questions
The Inquiry.
Five questions to find out whether this course is for you, before you open the first page.
Questions?
Write to us →For two readers in a single person. For the general public, who finally want to understand what the headlines are talking about, without jargon and without condescension. And for the technical or curious profile who wants to look under the hood. The two levels of reading serve both at once.