Superintelligence

Paths, Dangers, Strategies

De: Nick Bostrom

Narrado por: Napoleon Ryan

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.

Colossus: The Forbin Project is coming

This book is more frightening than any book you'll ever read. The author makes a great case for what the future holds for us humans. I believe the concepts in "The Singularity is Near" by Ray Kurzweil are mostly spot on, but the one area Kurzweil dismisses prematurely is how the SI (superintelligent advanced artificial intelligence) entity will react to its circumstances.

The book doesn't really dwell much on how the SI will be created. The author mostly assumes a computer algorithm of some kind with perhaps human brain enhancements. If you reject such an SI entity prima facie this book is not for you, since the book mostly deals with assuming such a recursive self aware and self improving entity will be in humanities future.

The author makes some incredibly good points. He mostly hypothesizes that the SI entity will be a singleton and not allow others of its kind to be created independently and will happen on a much faster timeline after certain milestones are fulfilled.

The book points out how hard it is to put safeguards into a procedure to guard against unintended consequences. For example, making 'the greater good for the greatest many' the final goal can lead to unintended consequence such as allowing a Nazi ruled world (he doesn't give that example directly in the book, and I borrow it from Karl Popper who gave it as a refutation for John Stuart Mill's utilitarian philosophy). If the goal is to make us all smile, the SI entity might make brain probes that force us to smile. There is no easy end goal specifiable without unintended consequences.

This kind of thinking within the book is another reason I can recommend the book. As I was listening, I realized that all the ways we try to motivate or control an SI entity to be moral can also be applied to us humans in order to make us moral to. Morality is hard both for us humans and for future SI entities.

There's a movie from the early 70s called "Colossus: The Forbin Project", it really is a template for this book, and I would recommend watching the movie before reading this book.

I just recently listened to the book, "Our Final Invention" by James Barrat. That book covers the same material that is presented in this book. This book is much better even though they overlap very much. The reason why is this author, Nick Bostrom, is a philosopher and knows how to lay out his premises in such a way that the story he is telling is consistent, coherent, and gives a narrative to tie the pieces together (even if the narrative will scare the daylights out of the listener).

This author has really thought about the problems inherent in an SI entity, and this book will be a template for almost all future books on this subject.

Thorough, With a Mix of Excellence and Other

The book is worth the listen because it is a very good and thorough exposition of one of the major technological problems and risks approaching us in the very near future. Anything that can bring Popular awareness of this and similar issues is a great value.

On the down side the author is so committed to voicing the scholarly non-committal tone that he fails to make definite statements about any topic, even when he could do so.

At times there are logical fallacies in the arguments, and assumptions about the nature of Artificial Intelligences that appear to be groundless, and are not supported by explanation.

There is also a tendency to quote and rely on a variety of "Celebrity" Experts, who have track records in Technology that more recently have led them down allies of almost clownish obsolescence in one case, and over-confidence leading to fallacies and mistakes in their work in the other case.

I would not take this book as 'gospel' on Super-Intelligence. Rather it is a worthwhile entry into the current fieldwork on the subject, such as it is.

Wrong narrator

Inflection of the narrator make this very hard to listen to. Guy sounds like he's reading Shakespeare.

Buy This. Everyone should hear this.

I was just casually interested in A.I. Progress. This book goes explains in great detail all the implications of what super intelligence would mean. I thought The Terminator and Skynet were an easily avoidable problem. The author explains how this is a extremely difficult and complex problem. Since this is something we might face this problem in our lifetime, the basics of this book should be common knowledge.

Good apocalyptic book, not so good for audio

the book is an eye opening essay about the hipothetical, but plausible and well rooted, paths the artificial intelligence may take and it's possible perilous consequences. A little bit dramatic some times and lacks (intentionally, I believe) some clarification about the current status of machine intelligence.
The author sometimes gives odd and biased examples that do not represent so well the ideas.

The narrator has an uncommon accent that may distract some listeners.

Dense, but very thought provoking.

Reading the reviews of this book never really made me want to read it, until I heard some people I respect highly recommended. And I have to say, I wish I read it earlier, as it's fascinating what the possibilities of Superintelligence are, how they may come to be, and what they may do to us. Supeintelligence isn't just about AI, it's about "Super Intelligence", which can also be applied to humans. If you don't mind a bit of a dense read, then I recommended this book.

Changed my view of the world

Nick Bostrom is rightfully sounding the alarm bells about artificial super intelligence. He uses sound logic to present the paths, dangers, and strategies for this new technology. The one down-side to having read this book is that now I sound like a crazy person whenever I bring up the topic of AI safety with anyone.

Is humanity ready for it?

Not now, says Nick Bostrom, very frank and open position statement from authors point of view, author who knows more about superintelligence than billions. Can't agree more, when people of reason start ruling the world and delusional religious fanatics fade into history, then we can say we are ready. Society should be easy to embrace the era of science and tech before embracing Superintelligence AI.

Good overall

Could benefit from breaking down concepts more and presenting in a way more digestible to broader audience, and give more practical strategies and next steps.

Dense but interesting and important

Describes the necessary thought required BEFORE we create superintelligence. It often reads like SF except it isn't. Makes the strong point that we are in existential danger if we don't address the key issues before we develop some form of machine intelligence.