Prime member exclusive:
pick 2 free titles with trial.
Pick 1 title (2 titles for Prime members) from our collection of bestsellers and new releases.
Access a growing selection of included Audible Originals, audiobooks and podcasts.
Your Premium Plus plan will continue for $14.95 a month after 30-day trial. Cancel anytime.
Rationality: From AI to Zombies  By  cover art

Rationality: From AI to Zombies

By: Eliezer Yudkowsky
Narrated by: George Thomas,Robert DeRoeck,Aaron Silverbook
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $26.05

Buy for $26.05

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's Summary

What does it actually mean to be rational? Not Hollywood-style "rational", where you forsake all human feeling to embrace Cold Hard Logic. Real rationality, of the sort studied by psychologists, social scientists, and mathematicians. The kind of rationality where you make good decisions, even when it's hard; where you reason well, even in the face of massive uncertainty; where you recognize and make full use of your fuzzy intuitions and emotions, rather than trying to discard them.

In Rationality: From AI to Zombies, Eliezer Yudkowsky explains the science underlying human irrationality with a mix of fables, argumentative essays, and personal vignettes. These eye-opening accounts of how the mind works (and how, all too often, it doesn't!) are then put to the test through some genuinely difficult puzzles: computer scientists' debates about the future of artificial intelligence (AI), physicists' debates about the relationship between the quantum and classical worlds, philosophers' debates about the metaphysics of zombies and the nature of morality, and many more. In the process, Rationality: From AI to Zombies delves into the human significance of correct reasoning more deeply than you'll find in any conventional textbook on cognitive science or philosophy of mind.

A decision theorist and researcher at the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, Yudkowsky published earlier drafts of his writings to the websites Overcoming Bias and Less Wrong. Rationality: From AI to Zombies compiles six volumes of Yudkowsky's essays into a single audiobook. Collectively, these sequences of linked essays serve as a rich and lively introduction to the science - and the art - of human rationality.

©2015 Machine Intelligence Research Institute (P)2015 Machine Intelligence Research Institute

What listeners say about Rationality: From AI to Zombies

Average Customer Ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    115
  • 4 Stars
    34
  • 3 Stars
    20
  • 2 Stars
    5
  • 1 Stars
    4
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    72
  • 4 Stars
    41
  • 3 Stars
    27
  • 2 Stars
    7
  • 1 Stars
    4
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    100
  • 4 Stars
    24
  • 3 Stars
    16
  • 2 Stars
    3
  • 1 Stars
    4

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great content. Some chapters should be re-recorded.

Start with the positive: the content is amazing, and perhaps life-changing if you aren’t already familiar with Yudkowski and rationalism. It is wide-ranging without being rambling. The ideas will break your brain.

And now the downsides. Some chapters were totally inaudible, as if the narrator was talking into a cheap webcam mic from across the room. Other chapters had decent audio quality but the narrator was so unfamiliar with the material that they mispronounced or flubbed key words and phrases. I get that it’s hard to narrate a nearly 50-hour anthology, but this is some low quality work.

Ultimately I wish this would get tightened up and organized into a true book — a bible of rationality — rather than a giant collection of thematically-connected thoughts. Trim some redundant bits, add connecting material, and take the audio recording process a bit more seriously.

34 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Must read, for those who are ready.

This is a long and winding book covering many topics with the obvious theme of being more rational as a human despite our flawed machinery of cognition.

If you don't know Yudkowski (I didn't) I would recommend kicking around on the Less Wrong website to get familiar with his style and theme. This book is not right for everyone.

This is NOT a good introduction to the topic. Its math heavy in parts. It rattles the very foundations of your belief system in others and, oh yeah, it's 50 hours long.

That said, if you got here because you are engaged in the life long business of ridding yourself of flawed thinking and have read considerable then I would HIGHLY recommend it.

A background in AI, heuristics and biases, basic philosophy, and familiarity with Beyes Theorem would help a lot. I didn't really have the tools to fully understand it. But I still gained a lot.

A willingness to rethink your most cherished beliefs is probably the strongest prerequisite. If you're not in possession of that trait, don't waste your time.

For me, it's fair to call the book life altering and believe that it has strongly affected the way my life will turn out. It made me rethink quite a few things. That's good. Because, as Eliezer is fond of saying "that which can be destroyed by the truth, should be".

Reading this will definitely red pill you if you are ready.

17 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

One of my top three books ever, maybe number one.

Stop thinking until you've read this. Incredibly important book for everyone, especially, but not just, AI researchers.

12 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Mediocre+

I like LessWrong, but this book was too much for me. I listened to about 30-50% before giving up. Most of points Eliezer makes are either too trivial or too complicated. There are a few nice pieces, e.g. the story about the color of the sky, but overall the book lacks consistency and failed to make an impact on me.

7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Interesting read. Narration quality varies.

"Rationality" is a very interesting text with useful insights and important problems to think about.

For a few chapters you should still have the website in front of you, since they contain formulas and/or figures.

At least one of the narrators is very good, but not all of them are.

5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Chapter Titles Should Replace Chapter Numbers

It's hard to keep track of articles when it's missing chapter Titles in the Audible menu.

I hope this can be fixed.

4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Excellent content, amateur narration

The main narrator was excellent, and reads the majority of the chapters but the other narrators were quiet, muffled, and background noises could be heard

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Fascinating and true

This book changed my life for the better. Anyhow, for the better or worse there's no coming back.

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Amazing, entertaining, informative, BRILLIANT!

A required read for all
If you like this check out Harry Potter M.O.R!!!
Thanks Audible!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Mind-changing

Yudkowsky has developed a framework for thinking and making sense that is unparalleled. He clarifies so many confusing questions, that it seems like you've made 10 years of progress, and you can literally feel your thinking becoming sharper as you read. Essential for anyone, who wants to understand the world and themselves.

2 people found this helpful

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars
Profile Image for Dylan
  • Dylan
  • 04-11-19

Clear, Important and Enjoyable

Yudkowsky rips through traditional ideas of rationality and clearly ties together Bayesian probability theory, cognitive psychology, epistemology, computer science, thermodynamics and quantum physics into an understandable and coherent picture of decision making systems.

Despite the length, I could not stop listening to this book. I've bought physical copies of the available books (RAZ:1 and RAZ:2) and I will likely buy more when they become available. The content of RAZ compares to Godel, Escher, Bach, although Yudkowsky doesn't have quite the artistic flair that Hofstadter has.

The serial-position effect from psychology says that memory recall for information dips in the middle of a list of points, so I will sneak my criticisms into this paragraph. RAZ is organised into a collection of 6 books which are created from essays written on LessWrong. As a result it can be a bit repetitive (Although it can sometimes help that important points are repeated). The thesis would seriously benefit from being condensed into 500-600 pages. I advise buying the Kindle edition alongside the audiobook and listening at 2x playback speed. I took notes and highlighted important points, and I plan to do my own small write-up of what I have learned.

I worry that for readers of a non-technical background Yudkowsky blows over topics in probability theory, computer science and physics too quickly. The insights might not be so readily available if you can't picture the processes that he discusses, but I think it's worth it for any non-techincal people to try to grapple with these ideas as much as they can. I can promise that if you put the effort in to learn some of this stuff you will be rewarded with a precise way to think about complex, interesting topics.

I can't emphasise enough just how clear-minded Yudkowsky is about the topic of rationality. He understands it deeply and doesn't hold back in showing how much he cares. Rationality isn't simply about "being right"; it's about thinking carefully to achieve the things that you want to achieve.

But don't be mistaken in thinking that this is a self-help book. The majority of the time is spent discussing how to make sense of reality. The corollary is that if you want to make changes in the world, hug reality tight, you can't navigate if your map doesn't reflect the territory, and learn to take joy in the merely real.

4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars
Profile Image for Milan Topalov
  • Milan Topalov
  • 12-15-19

Writing style is just bad

I was sold on the subject and a few good reviews. But after listening for 20 mins I gave up. instead of philosophical book I got a badly written sales book. Writing is so jumpy, imprecise, all over the place I just quit. Mind you I am sort of a person who would read a bad book just to determine how bad is it, but I just could not stomach this.

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars
Profile Image for Mark
  • Mark
  • 05-08-18

Long but worth it

I think I understood about 70% of the book but it was enough to make me feel like I have super powers.

For the most part, I found the book highly accessible, largely entertaining and extremely useful.

Would recommend it to anyone who wants to know how to use their mind more effectively.

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars
Profile Image for Anonymous User
  • Anonymous User
  • 06-02-23

Subtly life-changing

some parts can get boring and repetitive but in other parts yudkowsky was upheaving my entire worldview with precision. very satisfying to listen to

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars
Profile Image for Marcel
  • Marcel
  • 01-04-23

The Best Book Ever.

This is eyes opening book that should be required reading on every university in the world. I mean not just for students but professors too.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars
Profile Image for Luke
  • Luke
  • 03-02-19

Outstanding Book; Incomplete Audio

Eliezer Yudkowsky is a shining beacon of hope for humanity, and this book on rational thinking does a brilliant job of teaching some of the most difficult things there are to teach.

The book itself is amazing, but this audio recording omits numerous chapters due to their inclusion of diagrams and mathematics. It is incredibly disappointing to hear "This chapter can be read on pages X through Y of the eBook", especially when a free audio version of this book is being made and it includes them. It should be up to me as a reader to decide if I need to see the pages or can get by on descriptions - this simply feels like a lazy narrator that thought it seemed hard.

Overall I love the book, but if this book isnt priority number one on your list I'd wait for the podcast to finish.

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars
Profile Image for raz
  • raz
  • 02-17-19

Very good introduction to Bayesian thinking

Yudkowsky explains very well what it means to be thinking in rational way. The book can be thought of as a starting guide on how to be more rational. I’ve enjoyed the thought provoking stories like the jester. I will refer to this book for years to come.