Singularity Rising: Surviving and Thriving in a Smarter, Richer, and More Dangerous World

by James D. Miller (Author)

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ISBN-13: 978-1936661657

ISBN-10: 1936661659

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In Ray Kurzweil’s New York Times bestseller The Singularity is Near, the futurist and entrepreneur describes the Singularity, a likely future utterly different than anything we can imagine. The Singularity is triggered by the tremendous growth of human and computing intelligence that is an almost inevitable outcome of Moore's Law. Since the book's publication, the coming of the Singularity is now eagerly anticipated by many of the leading thinkers in Silicon Valley, from PayPal mastermind Peter Thiel to Google co-founder Larry Page. The formation of the Singularity University, and the huge popularity of the Singularity website kurzweilai.com, speak to the importance of this intellectual movement.

But what about the average person? How will the Singularity affect our daily lives—our jobs, our families, and our wealth?

Singularity Rising: Surviving and Thriving in a Smarter, Richer, and More Dangerous World focuses on the implications of a future society faced with an abundance of human and artificial intelligence. James D. Miller, an economics professor and popular speaker on the Singularity, reveals how natural selection has been increasing human intelligence over the past few thousand years and speculates on how intelligence enhancements will shape civilization over the next forty years.

Miller considers several possible scenarios in this coming singularity:
• A merger of man and machine making society fantastically wealthy and nearly immortal
• Competition with billions of cheap AIs drive human wages to almost nothing while making investors rich
• Businesses rethink investment decisions to take into account an expected future period of intense creative destruction
• Inequality drops worldwide as technologies mitigate the cognitive cost of living in impoverished environments
• Drugs designed to fight Alzheimer's disease and keep soldiers alert on battlefields have the fortunate side effect of increasing all of their users’ IQs, which, in turn, adds a percentage points to worldwide economic growth

Singularity Rising offers predictions about the economic implications for a future of widely expanding intelligence and practical career and investment advice on flourishing on the way to the Singularity.

Singularity Rising: Surviving and Thriving in a Smarter, Richer, and More Dangerous World

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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Many books are fun and interesting, but Singularity Rising is fun and interesting while focusing on some of the most important pieces of humanity's most important problem.”
—Luke Muehlhauser, Executive Director, Singularity Institute

“The arrow of progress may kick upwards into a booming curve or it may terminate in an existential zero. What it will not do is carry on as before. With great insight and forethought, Miller’s Singularity Rising prepares us for the forking paths ahead by teasing out the consequences of an artificial intelligence explosion and by staking red flags on the important technological problems of the next three decades.”
—Peter Thiel, self-made technology billionaire and co-founder of the Singularity Summit

“We've waited too long for a thorough, articulate, general-audience account of modern thinking on exponentially increasing machine intelligence and its risks and rewards for humanity. Miller provides exactly that, and I hope and expect that his book will greatly raise the quality of debate and research in this critical area.”
—Aubrey de Grey, leading biomedical gerontologist and former AI researcher

“How can we be intelligent about superintelligence? Its finessed agility steers its course through the terrain of analytics and into the salty basin of awareness. It is wise. It is a nonpartisan player. It flirts freely with friendliness. Miller understands this, even if his approach is at times jolting. Singularity Rising, by default, turns the reader to question the true value of intelligence and hopefully realize that it must be found in the bosom of its wisdom.”
—Natasha Vita-More, Chairman, Humanity+; editor, The Transhumanist Reader

“There are things in this book that could mess with your head.”
—Vernor Vinge, computer scientist, Hugo Award-winning author of A Fire Upon the Deep, essayist of "The Coming Technological Singularity"

About the Author

James D. Miller is an associate professor of economics at Smith College and was a speaker at the 2008 Singularity Summit. He has a JD from Stanford where he was on Law Review and a PhD from the University of Chicago where his dissertation advisor was a Nobel Prize winner. He is a columnist for BetterInvesting Magazine and regularly wrote for CNBC.com during the tech bubble. The Singularity Institute called Miller’s work “important” and relevant to its core mission.

Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: BenBella Books (October 16, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1936661659
ISBN-13: 978-1936661657
Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.9 x 8.9 inches
Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 31 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #515,043 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #134 in Books > Textbooks > Computer Science > Artificial Intelligence
- #368 in Books > Engineering & Transportation > Engineering > Bioengineering > Biotechnology
- #375 in Books > Computers & Technology > Computer Science > AI & Machine Learning > Intelligence & Semantics

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Customer reviews

3.6 out of 5 stars

5 star		39%
4 star		22%
3 star		10%
2 star		16%
1 star		13%

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Top customer reviews

Good overview

ByDonald W. Jordanon March 5, 2013

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

A well reasoned look at the varieties of singularity events that could occur. Often, writers that speak of the singularity either deal with it as something that will save humanity from itself, or plunge us into a dystopia or possibly extinction. Instead of approaching this subject as something that should be welcomed or fought against, the author works toward first building a philosophical and historical framework for understanding the singularity, then proceeds in classifying various types of singularities and how they might come about. There are clearly some scenarios that work in the best interest of humanity while others clearly don't, but the author looks at the philosophical and policy issues that need to be addressed today, before it's too late, to guide humanity through then next perilous phase of our technological adolescence.

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A Different Perspective

ByMike Haydonon July 3, 2013

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Written from the point of view of an economist, this book is quite different from a more science oriented book such as Ray Kurzweil's.

If this is your first time reading about Singularity, I recommend you read another book first to get a firm grip on the fundamentals. While this book does go into some of the reasoning behind whether or not the Singularity will occur, its primary value is answering the question: "if the Singularity does occur, what does it mean for us and how should we act now in anticipation of it occurring during our lifetime?"

A well written, easy to read, sufficiently balanced look at the Singularity and its personal impact for us.

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Interesting Reading but Lacks any focus

ByJohn Schmelzleon December 14, 2012

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

As has often been the case, I find a book that I really enjoy and then look for another book on the same topic only to be disappointed. In this case, I was looking to read more about the singularity from the economic side after reading Ray Kurzweil's bestseller "The Singularity is Near." This book spends very little time discussing "Surviving and Thriving in a Smarter, Richer, and More Dangerous World" as the title of the book would indicate. Therefore, it would be a good idea to know what the book is about before purchasing it. The book basically has three parts.

Part I Rise of the Robots: This part was somewhat interesting although, at the time, I felt it went off topic as to what a post Singularity world would be like. Most of the discussion was on the chances of an artificial intelligents (AI) taking over the world. He goes very deep into this topic discussing numerous scenarios in great detail on how AI could lead the destruction of humanity. (not what I was expecting)

Part II We become smarter without AI: This part really seemed to lose focus. The author starts out talking about IQ. He tries to tie IQ to economic growth and then starts talking about how IQ is genetic. He then talks about how people will use genetic engineering to increase the IQ of their children. He insists that the Chinese will start a program to create a race of super intelligent people. After this he starts discussing how drugs could be used to enhance a person's intelligence. I really started to wonder if this guy should be on ADD medication. Interestingly enough (and this is no lie) the author started to talk about how he started experimenting with different ADHD medications to increase his IQ. The author continued to discuss several other topics unrelated to a singularity including brain training exercises. At the end of this part of the book, he stated that he had stopped the ADHD medication because he found a special tea that worked just as well. (At this point I thought "Oh No now he is going to really start rambling!)

Part III Economic implications: This part really starts to discuss what I thought the whole book was going to be about. Unfortunately, this was probably the worst section of the book. I found his arguments unsubstantiated when discussing the economic impact. He also goes into great length trying to convince you that you should have your head cut off prior to your death and have it frozen. If you did this, he claims that you can be revived latter when medical technology advances. He specifics companies which will do this for you and the cost associated with it. It becomes almost like an advertisement.

I was debating as to whether I should give this book 2 or 3 stars. Despite my strong criticism, I did find most of the book rather interesting even if it was not what I thought I would be reading about. If you can get through the rambling and lack of focus of the author, and you find the above topics of interest, it might be worth reading.

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Fanciful

Bythegleepon July 26, 2013

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

In my experience predictions of how life will be 50 years in the future are wildly and laughably inaccurate. No doubt computer intelligence will grow, but I don't buy the intelligence "explosion." We are offered the alternatives of Everybody Dies and Utopia Unimaginable, so humankind must be very, very careful to ensure that the new machine intelligence is friendly. If the "explosion" occurs, the machine intelligence will be what it decides to be, notwithstanding man's attempts to ensure it is friendly. The book is entertaining at one level, but a tad over the top.

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Forward Thinking

ByMark de Souzaon April 19, 2014

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Mr Miller does a great job of continuing the discussion of how our society needs to be looking forward to the future. It has continued to be a serious subject amongst the best engineering minds on the planet but The Singularity needs to become a larger discussion with global citizens. May the outcome of our advancement in Artificial Intelligence truly be for the benefit of mankind.

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interesting

ByJan Sanfordon July 19, 2014

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Found singularity should be researched a bit more on my part....long live emulation!
Will also look into cryonics...sure hope they can put me back together....

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Most recent customer reviews

Five Stars

good perspectives

Published on August 25, 2015 by Jeff Wacker

Interesting points are made here and there, but it ...

Interesting points are made here and there, but it is quite difficult to keep the attention and the concentration.

Published on March 31, 2015 by Italian Ms.

Truly a MUST READ book for anyone remotely interested in what the future might bring!

I can not rave enough about this book. I stumbled across it recently during the final months of nearly three years of research in preparation for writing my own book on the...Read more

Published on February 19, 2015 by Brian

sad but true

this book is a total fraud. the author didn't even know what the singularity is; made up a bunch of homecooked lists. then after page 53, actual stupidity reigned.Read more

Published on August 13, 2014 by ronald clayton holmes

The G-N-R revolution is closer that you know... EVERYONE MUST READ THIS BOOK

EVERYONE MUST READ THIS BOOK
The future is closer than you know.

In the near future, many jobs will be eliminated.Read more

Published on August 4, 2014 by misterDormie

interesting

Sharp point of view, good info about possible causes of singularity happening and not hapening and the consecuences of each

Published on July 21, 2014 by Qz

book review

Great book, very interesting topic. It kept my interest from beginning to end. Also, a friend read the book and liked it as well.

Published on April 28, 2014 by Rolier

Singularity rising is a thrilling possibility we need to consider.of all of the possibilities we have before we need to conside

Interesting reading,provocative, stimulating, new concerns for all of us with inquisitive minds. Need to read . Further consideration must considered

Published on November 14, 2013 by ed s

Interesting at times, ridiculous at others.

The author of this book comes off cocky at times, telling us all about how smart he is and how high his IQ is.Read more

Published on July 20, 2013 by Jordan

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