Been on an AI book kick lately. Picked up AI 2041 by Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Qiufan—it came out in 2021, before ChatGPT launched. Wanted to see how the predictions held up.
Quick background: Lee was president of Google China and is a major AI investor. Chen is an award-winning Chinese sci-fi author. The format is interesting—each chapter has a sci-fi story set in 2041, then Lee follows with technical analysis.
My Scorecard
✅ Got It Right
- Deepfake explosion — Predicted massive growth. Reality: 500K in 2023 → 8M in 2025 (900% annual growth)
- Education AI — Predicted personalized learning would go mainstream. Reality: 57% of universities now prioritizing AI
- Voice cloning — Predicted it would become trivially easy. Reality: seconds of audio now creates convincing clones
- Insurance AI — Predicted deep learning would transform insurance pricing. Reality: happening now
- Job displacement pattern — Predicted gradual change hitting specific sectors first. Reality: exactly what we're seeing
❌ Got It Wrong
- AGI timeline — Lee was skeptical it would come soon. Industry leaders now say 2026-2028.
- Autonomous vehicles — Book suggested faster adoption than we've seen
- Chatbot capability — Didn't anticipate how fast LLMs would improve
⏳ Still TBD
- Quantum computing threats (book has a whole story about this)
- Full automation of routine jobs
- VR/AR immersive experiences
Overall: Surprisingly accurate for a 2021 book. The fiction-plus-analysis format works well. Some stories drag and have dated cultural elements, but the predictions embedded in them keep hitting.
Anyone else read this? Curious what other pre-ChatGPT AI books have aged well (or badly).
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