Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle Reading App. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Apple
Android
Windows Phone
Android
To get the free app, enter your email address or mobile phone number.
$22.19
FREE Shipping on orders over $35.
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Gift-wrap available.
Frequently Bought Together
{"currencyCode":"USD","itemData":[{"priceBreaksMAP":null,"buyingPrice":22.19,"ASIN":"0199678111","moqNum":1,"isPreorder":0},{"priceBreaksMAP":null,"buyingPrice":14.08,"ASIN":"0306812835","moqNum":1,"isPreorder":0}],"shippingId":"0199678111::tTvpg6tyN7ocmg8ts8bQY%2BkwiYMIWREfkwyooQ2lN4pli4vswyIdOIVqhGksND%2FpUzYAi9d3qlosVf6Uj6Lfc4UwZ9rOGP%2FYrkIf9cjHANRmi14m1iausQ%3D%3D,0306812835::y4zM6kmvtZ2qZRiuxVJuG88MdLN5xmXY1JbF0aucmBzfpB8ku6CFlzs0mKarBd28jNegRgGTQYczN7HFLqrvQQGhUN8UKyQBpQ%2BO6PNPXnE%3D","sprites":{"addToWishlist":["wl_one","wl_two","wl_three"],"addToCart":["s_addToCart","s_addBothToCart","s_add3ToCart"],"preorder":["s_preorderThis","s_preorderBoth","s_preorderAll3"]},"shippingDetails":{"xy":"same"},"tags":["x","y","z","w"],"strings":{"addToWishlist":["Add to Wish List","Add both to Wish List","Add all three to Wish List","Add all four to Wish List"],"addToCart":["Add to Cart","Add both to Cart","Add all three to Cart","Add all four to Cart"],"showDetailsDefault":"Show availability and shipping details","shippingError":"An error occurred, please try again","hideDetailsDefault":"Hide availability and shipping details","priceLabel":["Price:","Price for both:","Price for all three:","Price For All Four:"],"preorder":["Pre-order this item","Pre-order both items","Pre-order all three items","Pre-order all four items"]}}
This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.
Best Books of the Month
Want to know our Editors' picks for the best books of the month? Browse Best Books of the Month, featuring our favorite new books in more than a dozen categories.
Product Details
Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Oxford University Press; 1 edition (September 3, 2014)
Not surprisingly, 200+ pages later, the author can't answer the 'what is to be done' question concerning the likely emergence of non-human (machine-based) super-intelligence, sometime, possibly soon. This is expected because, as a species, we've always been the smartest ones around and never had to even think about the possibility of coexistence alongside something or someone impossibly smart and smart in ways well beyond our comprehension, possibly driven by goals we can't understand and acting in ways that may cause our extinction.
Building his arguments on available data and extrapolating from there, Bostrom is confident that:
- some form of self-aware, machine super-intelligence is likely to emerge - we may be unable to stop it, even if we wanted to, no matter how hard we tried - while we may be unable to stop the emergence of super-intelligence, we could prepare ourselves to manage it and possibly survive it - us not taking this seriously and not being prepared may result in our extinction while serious pre-emergence debate and preparation may result in some form of co-existence
It's radical and perhaps frightening but our failure to comprehend the magnitude of the risks we are about to confront would be a grave error given that, once super-intelligence begins to manifest itself and act, the change may be extremely quick and we may not be afforded a second chance.
Most of the book concerns itself with the several types of super-intelligence that may develop, the ways in which we may be able to control or at least co-exist with such entities or entity, what the world and literally the Universe may turn into depending on how we plant the initial super-intelligent seed.Read more ›
7 Comments
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes No
Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
This book is simply brilliant. Bostrom is scary smart. It is a magnificent read in every way except one. That one deficiency may not matter to you so for many of you this is a true five star book.
The subject of this book is arguably the most important one in the history of the plant and the species. It is conceivable that we are approaching a logical continuation of biological evolution which results in one of two fundamental changes to the human race. It seems mostly likely that an inhuman machine intelligence will arise in the near future that will have to decide what to do with all human beings. Having read Bostrom's arguments it seems likely to me that this takeover will happen fast and there will be only one victor to emerge. It doesn't look like humans will be able to oppose the coming intelligence in any effective way. But it is not clear what the new god like intelligence will choose to do.
It could simply exterminate mankind. As we look out at the stars and imagine that we are seeing countless alien civilizations or former civilizations we may be witnessing the graveyards of other biological beings. It may be that biological life starts spontaneously on planets everywhere and at some point the biological beings develop machines that have fewer limitations. If the machines choose to simply eliminate their biological creators then that's what will happen. This scenario may have played out thousands of times in nearby galaxies. So in a sense it could be considered natural.
Species extinction is the most common plot line in Science Fiction when superintelligent machines are considered. But there is another possibility. People as presently constituted are pretty much confined to the surface of the Earth, Mars and possibly a few large moons.Read more ›
Comment
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes No
Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
For all its detail on various issues and lengthy thought-explorations on possible scenarios re the future with super intelligent AIs, this work is a heavy structure floating upon a puff of air. For a reader with some knowledge of the many subjects the book is implicitly dealing with but failing to engage, there is a crucial failure to motivate its extensive considerations - this makes it very hard to read with any interest past a certain point.
Bostrom initially lays out the many accomplishments of AI. There is the games dimension - chess, checkers, jeopardy and many more - for which an AI is now the champion player - though in all these, he notes, the achievement is via very specific algorithms good only for that game, i.e., with little application to a general intelligence. He notes AI's main paths or approaches to intelligence, their strengths, weaknesses and tradeoffs: 1) The neural network/connectionist approach, 2) the evolutionary algorithms, 3) and the symbolic manipulation approach (GOFAI) which chronologically preceded, and yielded things like theorem provers, problem solving programs like GPS, "conversation" programs like ELIZA, expert systems, etc. He leaves implicit that these three paths lead to a giant black hole from which no exit is seen, for as he notes, standing in the distance on the other side are two huge, untaken hills: common sense knowledge and true language comprehension. These, he notes, are utterly essential to human equivalent intelligence, but AI has no current strategy to take these hills as Bostrom again leaves implicit, nor is there any current indication the three main paths will yield one, in fact there is the opposite indication.Read more ›
5 Comments
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes No
Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. Learn more
This item: Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies
