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Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies
Nick Bostrom
€ 15.99
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Description for Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies
Paperback. This seminal book injects the topic of superintelligence into the academic and popular mainstream. What happens when machines surpass humans in general intelligence? Will artificial agents save or destroy us? In a tour de force of analytic thinking, Bostrom lays a foundation for understanding the future of humanity and intelligent life. Num Pages: 390 pages, black and white line drawings and halftones. BIC Classification: PDR; PDZ; UYQ; UYZ. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 196 x 129. .
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. Other animals have stronger muscles or sharper claws, but we have cleverer brains. If machine brains one day come to surpass human brains in general intelligence, then this new superintelligence could become very powerful. As the fate of the gorillas now depends more on us humans than on the gorillas themselves, so the fate of our species then would come to 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 AI or otherwise to engineer initial conditions so as to make an intelligence explosion survivable? How could one achieve a controlled detonation? To get closer to an answer to this question, we must make our way through a fascinating landscape of topics and considerations. Read the book and learn about oracles, genies, singletons; about boxing methods, tripwires, and mind crime; about humanity's cosmic endowment and differential technological development; indirect normativity, instrumental convergence, whole brain emulation and technology couplings; Malthusian economics and dystopian evolution; artificial intelligence, and biological cognitive enhancement, and collective intelligence. This profoundly ambitious and original book picks its way carefully through a vast tract of forbiddingly difficult intellectual terrain. Yet the writing is so lucid that it somehow makes it all seem easy. 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.
Product Details
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Format
Paperback
Publication date
2016
Condition
New
Number of Pages
432
Place of Publication
Oxford, United Kingdom
ISBN
9780198739838
SKU
V9780198739838
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 4 to 8 working days
Ref
99-50
About Nick Bostrom
Nick Bostrom is Professor in the Faculty of Philosophy at Oxford University and founding Director of the Strategic Artificial Intelligence Research Centre and of the Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology within the Oxford Martin School. He is the author of some 200 publications, including Anthropic Bias (Routledge, 2002), Global Catastrophic Risks (ed., OUP, 2008), and Human Enhancement (ed., OUP, 2009). He previously taught at Yale, and he was a Postdoctoral Fellow of the British Academy. Bostrom has a background in physics, computational neuroscience, and mathematical logic as well as philosophy.
Reviews for Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies
Every intelligent person should read it.
Nils Nilsson, Artificial Intelligence Pioneer, Stanford University
A damn hard read
Sunday Telegraph
Worth reading.... We need to be super careful with AI. Potentially more dangerous than nukes
Elon Musk, Founder of SpaceX and Tesla
There is no doubting the force of [Bostrom's] arguments the problem is a research challenge worthy of the next generations best mathematical talent. Human civilisation is at stake
Financial Times
Valuable. The implications of introducing a second intelligent species onto Earth are far-reaching enough to deserve hard thinking
The Economist
Terribly important ... groundbreaking... extraordinary sagacity and clarity, enabling him to combine his wide-ranging knowledge over an impressively broad spectrum of disciplines - engineering, natural sciences, medicine, social sciences and philosophy - into a comprehensible whole... If this book gets the reception that it deserves, it may turn out the most important alarm bell since Rachel Carson's Silent Spring from 1962, or ever
Olle Haggstrom, Professor of Mathematical Statistics
This superb analysis by one of the worlds clearest thinkers tackles one of humanitys greatest challenges: if future superhuman artificial intelligence becomes the biggest event in human history, then how can we ensure that it doesnt become the last?
Max Tegmark, Professor of Physics, MIT
Those disposed to dismiss an 'AI takeover' as science fiction may think again after reading this original and well-argued book
Martin Rees, Past President, Royal Society
Nick Bostrom makes a persuasive case that the future impact of AI is perhaps the most important issue the human race has ever faced. Instead of passively drifting, we need to steer a course. Superintelligence charts the submerged rocks of the future with unprecedented detail. It marks the beginning of a new era
Stuart Russell, Professor of Computer Science, University of California, Berkley
I highly recommend this book
Bill Gates
Nils Nilsson, Artificial Intelligence Pioneer, Stanford University
A damn hard read
Sunday Telegraph
Worth reading.... We need to be super careful with AI. Potentially more dangerous than nukes
Elon Musk, Founder of SpaceX and Tesla
There is no doubting the force of [Bostrom's] arguments the problem is a research challenge worthy of the next generations best mathematical talent. Human civilisation is at stake
Financial Times
Valuable. The implications of introducing a second intelligent species onto Earth are far-reaching enough to deserve hard thinking
The Economist
Terribly important ... groundbreaking... extraordinary sagacity and clarity, enabling him to combine his wide-ranging knowledge over an impressively broad spectrum of disciplines - engineering, natural sciences, medicine, social sciences and philosophy - into a comprehensible whole... If this book gets the reception that it deserves, it may turn out the most important alarm bell since Rachel Carson's Silent Spring from 1962, or ever
Olle Haggstrom, Professor of Mathematical Statistics
This superb analysis by one of the worlds clearest thinkers tackles one of humanitys greatest challenges: if future superhuman artificial intelligence becomes the biggest event in human history, then how can we ensure that it doesnt become the last?
Max Tegmark, Professor of Physics, MIT
Those disposed to dismiss an 'AI takeover' as science fiction may think again after reading this original and well-argued book
Martin Rees, Past President, Royal Society
Nick Bostrom makes a persuasive case that the future impact of AI is perhaps the most important issue the human race has ever faced. Instead of passively drifting, we need to steer a course. Superintelligence charts the submerged rocks of the future with unprecedented detail. It marks the beginning of a new era
Stuart Russell, Professor of Computer Science, University of California, Berkley
I highly recommend this book
Bill Gates