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Cover of Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom

Superintelligence

  • 352 pages · about 6 hours
  • First published 2014
  • 11 editions

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1 About this book

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.

Good for readers who want: artificial intelligence and philosophy.

  • Cognitive Science
  • Artificial intelligence
  • Philosophy
  • Computers and civilization
  • Sciences cognitives
  • Computers
  • Computers and IT
  • Intelligence artificielle

2 About Nick Bostrom

Born 1973

Niklas Boström (born 10 March 1973) is a Swedish philosopher known for his work on existential risk, the anthropic principle, human enhancement ethics, whole brain emulation, superintelligence risks, and the reversal test. He was the founding director of the later defunct Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford and is currently Principal Researcher at his own Macrostrategy Research Initiative.

Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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