Have your mind blown

If you've been busy worrying about climate change or flu pandemics, here is something far more terrifying and glamorous to worry about.

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1 person found this helpful

Not a bad book.

In hindsight I think the author does a fantastic job, problem is no one really has much of an idea when A.I will arrive.
Also New A.I will redefine itself, meaning our guesses are just that. Trying to predict how a A.I superintelligence
capable of upgrading itself at super fast rates means once its here, we will have as much in common as we humans do to a flea...
Odds are we are the next dinosaurs on planet earth.. lol...

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Ahead of its time but maybe too sci-fi

It’s a great book but it’s a decade old now and it’s very speculative about AI and the stuff about genetic engineering human super intelligence is a bit eugenicsy

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recommended by Elon Musk

This is a no holds bar book on a subject which if given the appropriate explanation on parts which the book expects you to understand would be I feel a few hours longer, so get ready to take notes and Google some Ai terms as there are a few.

I really enjoyed this book even though it has most dystopian potential outlook of the possible future under the wrong Ai model, all I could think was my goodness that's the most terrifying possible place man kind could end up. The people in the know need to I feel take the subject of a Super intelligence more serious than nukeiler war

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6 people found this helpful

WTF

W......in.....T.....actual......F Excuse me while I go and have my 3rd existential crises in 1 week :o

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1 person found this helpful

Very interesting

It had a few too many references to tables and figures for an audio book

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Wish there was more philosophy of mind included.

I love Nick's work on Simulation theory, so i picked this up expecting to be convinced or enlightened on how conscious of self aware machines could even be possible. Unfortunately any philosophy behind the hard problem of consciousness isn't addressed in this book, i found it a bit too inside baseball for me but I'm sure programmers or people already convinced of the possibility of sentience in machines would love it.

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Hard work

Clever guy with goood reasoning. But superintelligence required to follow it all.

Food for thought though

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Timely topic, ponderous style and robot narrator

What made the experience of listening to Superintelligence the most enjoyable?

It's a timely topic that is covered in great detail, perhaps stating the obvious a bit too frequently. It is extremely thorough in the approach, delving into a variety of areas that support the central topic of AI and the potential threats it harbours

Who was your favorite character and why?

N/A

What do you think the narrator could have done better?

The narrator is a text to speech synthesiser rather than a real person, and whilst it is better than most, giving a fair degree of intonation, it fails badly at times (eg abbreviations said in a way no human would say) and because the tone is so repetitive any initial advantages in clarity are soon swamped by the monotony.

Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

No, and this is partly the topic, partly the style and partly the synthetic narrator.

Any additional comments?

It's remarkable that no reviews appear to identify that the narrator is synthetic (one person stated that it was spoken like one). It isn't clear from the sample if you are not prepared but it is obvious once you start to listen, as most words at the same point in a sentence have identical sound, lacking the subtle variation that human narrators provide. It is surprisingly clear but in the long run it becomes extremely tedious to listen to. This also brings the question of whether the book is good value, and given that the narrator being synthetic is not made clear to the purchasers I feel that it is not. Others may disagree and it's a matter of taste but you should be aware before you purchase

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71 people found this helpful

An interesting and insightful view into AI

A genuinely interesting premise, the concepts and theories discussed with the book are thought provoking and provide a great insight into the prospect of reaching super intelligence.

However I think the hard copy might be more suitable, the narrator is very flat and by the end of the book I couldn't wait to be finished. Not to mention there's many references to figures/diagrams which cannot be properly conveyed through the medium.

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1 person found this helpful