364 pages
English language
Published April 4, 2017
"How will artificial intelligence affect crime, war, justice, jobs, society and our very sense of being human? The rise of AI has the potential to transform our future more than any other technology--and there's nobody better qualified or situated to explore that future than Max Tegmark, an MIT professor who's helped mainstream research on how to keep AI beneficial. How can we grow our prosperity through automation without leaving people lacking income or purpose? What career advice should we give today's kids? How can we make future AI systems more robust, so that they do what we want without crashing, malfunctioning or getting hacked? Should we fear an arms race in lethal autonomous weapons? Will machines eventually outsmart us at all tasks, replacing humans on the job market and perhaps altogether? Will AI help life flourish like never before or give us more power than we can handle? What sort …
"How will artificial intelligence affect crime, war, justice, jobs, society and our very sense of being human? The rise of AI has the potential to transform our future more than any other technology--and there's nobody better qualified or situated to explore that future than Max Tegmark, an MIT professor who's helped mainstream research on how to keep AI beneficial. How can we grow our prosperity through automation without leaving people lacking income or purpose? What career advice should we give today's kids? How can we make future AI systems more robust, so that they do what we want without crashing, malfunctioning or getting hacked? Should we fear an arms race in lethal autonomous weapons? Will machines eventually outsmart us at all tasks, replacing humans on the job market and perhaps altogether? Will AI help life flourish like never before or give us more power than we can handle? What sort of future do you want? This book empowers you to join what may be the most important conversation of our time. It doesn't shy away from the full range of viewpoints or from the most controversial issues--from superintelligence to meaning, consciousness and the ultimate physical limits on life in the cosmos."--Jacket.
I've read several books on the future of artificial intelligence, and this one is definitely the best. It's in an depth look at development and impact of AI, but also very approachable for the lay person.
An interesting topic turned into a collection of "facts intermixed with opinions presented as facts". While many of the discussions and concerns feel relevant, I cannot help but leaving this book with a feeling of having been duped by a salesman. So many things are presented according to the template "only these x things can happen" where clearly, a lot of other scenarios are both possible and plausible. Maybe it's just that it's to dystopic - according to this book there is clearly no way we will outlive AGI even for a few generations.
Still, with all this said, I found a lot of the contents of the book both interesting and thought-provoking.
You can be forgiven for thinking that this is a book about artificial intelligence. In fact, it's a book about the future of life on Earth over the next billion or so years. It's just that, the way things are going, it's a good bet that a big chunk of that is going to involve artificial intelligence.
This is also an optimistic future-speculation book, and thus is likely to be far rosier than the future will turn out to be.
The author also has a tendency to name-drop. The last chapter, in particular, can be skipped almost entirely, unless you enjoy reading dashing tales of hobnobbing with movers and/or shakers.
But all of that aside, there's a good amount of substance: What is AI good at now, and what will humans continue to be better at in the next few decades? What does superintelligent AI look and act like? How …
You can be forgiven for thinking that this is a book about artificial intelligence. In fact, it's a book about the future of life on Earth over the next billion or so years. It's just that, the way things are going, it's a good bet that a big chunk of that is going to involve artificial intelligence.
This is also an optimistic future-speculation book, and thus is likely to be far rosier than the future will turn out to be.
The author also has a tendency to name-drop. The last chapter, in particular, can be skipped almost entirely, unless you enjoy reading dashing tales of hobnobbing with movers and/or shakers.
But all of that aside, there's a good amount of substance: What is AI good at now, and what will humans continue to be better at in the next few decades? What does superintelligent AI look and act like? How can we keep it in check? How can we reevaluate the goals we give the AI, if our original goals turn out to be misguided or obsolete?
As much as I would wish to present a review that would justly honor this book, I guess I’m doomed to fail. For this is the kind of work that is so overwhelmingly complex, and great in scope, that trying to reduce it to any meaningful narratives is a daunting task. In a way, I want to chicken my way out of it, by simply saying, or better still, by simply pointing to the book, as in meaning: “go and read it yourselves”.
Do I recommend it? Of course I do. This is the right book on a very controversial but unavoidable topic of Artificial Intelligence (AI, for short). For we all sense it is happening, or at least it will happen, and with it will come many life changing (or should I say game changing?) consequences that cannot, and should not, be ignored.
Before reading this, though I …
As much as I would wish to present a review that would justly honor this book, I guess I’m doomed to fail. For this is the kind of work that is so overwhelmingly complex, and great in scope, that trying to reduce it to any meaningful narratives is a daunting task. In a way, I want to chicken my way out of it, by simply saying, or better still, by simply pointing to the book, as in meaning: “go and read it yourselves”.
Do I recommend it? Of course I do. This is the right book on a very controversial but unavoidable topic of Artificial Intelligence (AI, for short). For we all sense it is happening, or at least it will happen, and with it will come many life changing (or should I say game changing?) consequences that cannot, and should not, be ignored.
Before reading this, though I was a bit aware of some of the problems and concerns around the development of a powerful General Artificial Intelligence (AGI), truth is that I hadn’t truly grasped how problematic these technologies were — or how dangerous an endeavor this was. And this is where the book will stun those who, like me, only have a passing view on this subject.
Author Max Tegmark, the Swedish-American cosmologist, has a depth of knowledge both in physics and, well, obviously, cosmology that makes his thinking reach far beyond any other author on this subject (not even science-fiction writers with their inkling for imagining dystopian futures). Sometimes his thinking so far ahead, and I do mean really far, so deep into the future, that you will be awestruck for how deep are his concerns about the future of life and of our continuation as a species when faced with the many unavoidable obstacles we will inevitably have to face.
I have no expertise in these fields or on this topic to go about and break down whatever is discussed here here in any meaningful way. What I can do is to share my amazement and sense of wonder that I felt by reading this book. Thanks to it I’m now more aware of how complicated these issues are, what are the risks involved in developing these technologies, and even of how they can, and probably will, change the course of life and our future as a truly planetary species.
Having followed the many reasonings and evidences as Tegmark lays them out, even if I’m not as optimistic as he seems to be at the end of the book (you would have to read it to understand what I mean — for he has very compelling reasons to feel the way he does), I’m at least more comfortable with the directions things are taking. For AGI, if it happens, will probably be that Life 3.0 kind of paradigm shift, the aptly named singularity point, from beyond which what we can think or hope to understand is without doubt meaningless.
So, to wrap it up: if you have the smallest inkling in knowing more about AI, AGI, the problems surrounding this topic (and there are many!), and about the future of life on this planet and of our species, I wholeheartedly recommend you read this book. How many pages? 300 something? Don’t worry — for you won’t even notice. This is how interesting and exciting you will find this book.
Boken är bra men väldigt spretig. Ena stunden pratas det fysik och viskositet för att sedan gå in på medvetande och hur hela universum skulle kunna utföra beräkningar (om än långsamt).
Hade hellre läst innehållet i tre mer fokuserade böcker.
