Superintelligence

Paths, Dangers, Strategies

By: Nick Bostrom

Narrated by: Napoleon Ryan

Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins

Publisher's summary

Superintelligence asks the questions: What happens when machines surpass humans in general intelligence? Will artificial agents save or destroy us? Nick Bostrom lays the foundation for understanding the future of humanity and intelligent life. The human brain has some capabilities that the brains of other animals lack. It is to these distinctive capabilities that our species owes its dominant position. If machine brains surpassed human brains in general intelligence, then this new superintelligence could become extremely powerful - possibly beyond our control. As the fate of the gorillas now depends more on humans than on the species itself, so would the fate of humankind depend on the actions of the machine superintelligence.

But we have one advantage: We get to make the first move. Will it be possible to construct a seed Artificial Intelligence, to engineer initial conditions so as to make an intelligence explosion survivable? How could one achieve a controlled detonation?

This profoundly ambitious and original book breaks down a vast track of difficult intellectual terrain. After an utterly engrossing journey that takes us to the frontiers of thinking about the human condition and the future of intelligent life, we find in Nick Bostrom's work nothing less than a reconceptualization of the essential task of our time.

Download the accompanying reference guide.

©2014 Nick Bostrom (P)2014 Audible Inc.

Required listen

This should be a required,pre-requisite read/listen for anyone in AI working to progress the field. That being said, I’m a biologist and know next to nothing about this area. Both extremely interesting and thought provoking. My feeble brain is still reeling.

Must Read Book - Deep insight into AI

Fascinating deep dive into Artificial Intelligence - laying out the ground rules for future AI developers and project managers.

Can we surpasss the challenge of a an emergin superintelligence?

Amost 10 years after this book was published the race for AI seems to be left out of the bottle and that risks are very real ans not so far away. I think that we can handle this challenge of living with a superintelligence in our lifes. What do you think?

Narration is horrible

Would you consider the audio edition of Superintelligence to be better than the print version?

No. This is not a novel and the narrator acts the book where I just want him to read the book. The narrator adds his own exclamation marks on words he thinks are important to highlight. The strong English accent (and I am British) makes the book feel highbrow in a bad way. Very annoying.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Superintelligence?

The owl fable in the beginning

Would you be willing to try another one of Napoleon Ryan’s performances?

No

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Terminator (oh wait that one has been made already)

interesting topic, disappointing execution

I feel Bostrom uses too many words to make fairly obvious points. I also found a fair bit of redundancy in the material presented at least in the first part (until I quit).

Mindblowing and easy to read

Worth a read/listen if the prospect of AI both excites and scares you. The book gives a thorough look at all the different ways we might go about developing AI, and what might happen if we do succeed.

Amazing book, but too complicated for audio.

I love this book. I first read it by listening on Audible, and it made a big impression on me. But I felt that I missed a lot of it, and that a lot of it didn't stick or sink in, because it's a little harder to stop the audio than it is to stop reading. So I bought it on kindle and read it again, and that time got much more out of it. So the book is wonderful, but much too rich, dense, and full of great ideas that you'll want to go over in your mind slowly for audio.

(minor quibble: the narrator insists on pronouncing all acronyms in terms of letters, which is not right--GOFAI should be pronounced "Goe-fai" and not "Gee Oh Eff Ey Ai.")

A book everyone should read multiple times

This topic becomes more relevant with each passing day. Technology will keep marching on, to an end that can either free humans from daily toil or destroy everything that makes us human today. There are 3 states of being for us humans; there are those that make things happen, those that watch things happen, and those that wonder what happened. This book will elevate you to watching and make you more capable of taking action. I will be purchasing it in hard copy.

amazingly inspirational

definitely a must read on AI. but sometimes I think I would've been better off actually reading it instead of listening, since it's kind of a complicated subject matter. the narrator also has a strange accent (couldn't tell where from), but it kinda makes the book cooler somehow. maybe you will like, maybe you won't.

Crazy

Poses some shocking and critical philosophical questions, which makes it a very interesting book to read