By Washington Post book critic Ron CharlesHere are five hot new books to check out this summer:If you're trying to figure out what's happening with artificial intelligence, pick up "Empire of AI." Journalist Karen Hao investigates the rise of OpenAI and its visionary co-founder, Sam Altman.With alarming detail, she shows how this once idealistic company became everything it said it would not be, even as it remakes and gobbles up the world.READ AN EXCERPT: "Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI" by Karen Hao "Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI" by Karen Hao (Penguin Press), in Hardcover, eBook and Audio formats, available via Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Bookshop.orgkarendhao.comEverybody knows about Amelia Earhart's mysterious final flight.
But what about the years before she disappeared? In "The Aviator and the Showman" (to be published July 15 by Viking), Laurie Gwen Shapiro draws on newly-uncovered sources to explore the famed pilot's life and her marriage to wealthy publisher George Putnam.Theirs was a relationship that lifted love, publicity and especially risk to mythic heights.
READ AN EXCERPT: "The Aviator and the Showman" by Laurie Gwen Shapiro"The Aviator and the Showman: Amelia Earhart, George Putnam, and the Marriage that Made an American Icon" by Laurie Gwen Shapiro (Viking), in Hardcover, eBook and Audio formats, available July 15 via Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Bookshop.orglauriegwenshapiro.comTake a chance on a new writer, and you may be delighted: Rob Franklin's debut novel, "Great Black Hope," follows a young African American man whose family launched him for success – but after an arrest for drug possession and the death of a close friend, his once-bright future feels anything but guaranteed.READ AN EXCERPT: "Great Black Hope" by Rob Franklin"Great Black Hope" by Rob Franklin (Simon & Schuster/Summit Books), in Hardcover, eBook and Audio formats, available Jun...