AR Insider Bookshelf: Supercharge Your Life with AI

In an age when AI headlines dominate every corner of the tech world, Rikard Steiber’s Supercharge Your Life with AI arrives as an unexpected gift for the holidays. This is an accessible, personal, and practical guide on how to harness the transformative power of AI professionally and personally. Steiber, a veteran of Google, HTC Vive, and self-driving vehicle company Einride, provides a human-centered perspective on how AI can augment our lives in profound, and profoundly practical, ways.

Steiber effectively uses personal anecdotes, from the birth of his daughters to his journey at Google to his experience founding GoodTrust, a digital legacy service, to show how his personal and professional journey can leverage AI to achieve success and satisfaction. This narrative arc serves to remind readers that AI isn’t just for engineers and researchers—it’s for parents, students, and professionals seeking to improve everyday life.

One of the book’s key strengths is its clear structure. Each chapter addresses a specific aspect of modern life where AI can make a tangible difference—health, family, work, learning, and even love. As a reader, it was easy to bounce around from chapter to chapter to investigate aspects of particular personal interest. In Chapter 4: Health, for example, Steiber highlights the evolution of health-related AI tools, from personalized sleep-tracking systems to AI-driven fitness apps that adjust to the user’s schedule in real time. Steiber shows AI can be a personal coach, wellness advisor, and perhaps even a therapist. Things like step tracking and calorie count are just data points.

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Perhaps the most compelling chapter is Chapter 5: Family, where Steiber candidly addresses one of the most intimate parts of our lives—relationships. From dating apps that leverage AI for better matchmaking to tools that support parents in child-rearing, the possibilities are as fascinating as they are unsettling. The notion of AI as a relationship coach might sound like a “Black Mirror” episode, but Steiber’s measured optimism reminds us that it’s already here and quietly shaping our daily interactions.

The book is packed with practical tips on how to engage with AI right now. Steiber isn’t content to dazzle readers with futuristic predictions—he’s on a mission to show you what’s possible today. He offers simple suggestions, like experimenting with generative AI art platforms for creativity or using AI personal assistants to optimize productivity. The chapter on work is particularly relevant in a post-pandemic world, where hybrid work has become the new norm. Steiber’s guidance on becoming a “hybrid professional” highlights how workers can wield AI tools to maximize efficiency and redefine their roles in the labor market.

No discussion of AI is complete without addressing its ethical implications. Steiber doesn’t shy away from this, dedicating thoughtful space to questions of bias, data privacy, and the social impact of AI automation. He calls for readers to be active participants in shaping how these technologies evolve. The “AI revolution” isn’t something to be passively experienced, he argues—it’s something to be actively engaged with.

One could argue that by touching on everything from AI-driven matchmaking to immortality through AI avatars, Steiber runs the risk of being a mile wide and an inch deep. Personally, I don’t see it that way, especially after a Thanksgiving dinner with my extended family. Most educated professionals out in the wild, I was surprised to learn, are only vaguely aware of AI, and how it might impact them. Rikard Steiber’s Supercharge Your Life with AI is the perfect book for them this Christmas.

Charlie Fink is the author of the AR-enabled books “Metaverse,” (2017) and “Convergence” (2019). In the early 90s, Fink was EVP & COO of VR pioneer Virtual World Entertainment. He teaches at Chapman University in Orange, CA.