Surviving AI: The promise and peril of artificial intelligence

There is always talk in engineering circles of 'the next big thing', i.e. the next technology that will change our lives. AI has promised this in the past but hasn't quite managed it - yet. This book gives an excellent overview of AI, it's history, current technologies that we use very day that have a hint of AI about them, and a look forward to how AI might develop and change our lives in the future. Most importantly it looks at the challenges we will face in making AI work for us rather than against us. The author has taken a subject which, let's face it, could have been turgid and dry and made it eminently interesting, thought-provoking and readable. Explanations of technical ideas such as exponential growth are very well done and will help the lay person to grasp the ideas as well as a more technical reader. AI may not be the next big thing but this books shows that it will certainly be a very big thing one day. Anyone interested in the future of technology should read this.

This is useful. I did funnily an article on fentanyl smuggling using human interviews in 2020 and it seemed my findings turned up better than those who used AI but such is the change and development always good to keep up with change!

Good read, easy to access also for readers with little or no prior knowledge of the topic. I rated it three stars as the writers adds little incremental thoughts to the debate, most of the arguments used in the book are directly taken or inspired by other people that think and write about AI.

I first became interested in AI and its implications for humanity/society after watching a talk by Calum Chace on YouTube (I definitely recommend watching some of his talks as he is an engaging speaker with an enthusiasm for the subject that is infectious.) Anyway, the book is good: an easy-to-follow introduction to the possibilities and challenges that AI, and in particular AGI, throws up. It's definitely only a starting point on AI though. Max Tegmark's Life 3.0 was the book I read after. Nick Bostrom's Superintelligence will probably be the next book I read on the subject.

I read this short book over just 2 days and shortly after finishing Life 3.0 by M.Tegmark and so my review inevitably compares the two. Essentially, they both cover the same ground but Life 3.0 being almost twice as long covers many of the topics in much greater depth, which is perhaps not unsurprising considering the different author's credentials. If I was asked which is the better of the two, I would ask what is it that you wish to garner from each with regard to the rise of AI; is it just an overview of what futures we can expect or is it a much more in-depth of the possible scenarios and consequences of AI? In retrospect, I think it would have been much more sensible if I had read them in the reverse order, as I am sure my interest in the subject would have been piqued by reading this book, which would have led me to read Tegmark's book. If I had read this book first I may well have given it 5 stars, but by comparing it to Life 3.0 I feel I must lower the rating based purely on the depth of content. Having said that I did find it a well writen and engaging book which gives a concise overview of possible AI futures, although I would have liked to have seen more coverage of present day AI and its applications.

I bought this (and The Economic Singularity) after seeing Calum Chace talk at a conference. There's a lot to consider in here and you probably need to hear some alternative views as well but the book is well laid out and covers a lot of ground. If you're disappointed that the predictions of early Sci-Fi authors didn't come to pass, you might be sceptical about some of the forecasts here - but never say never.

Having already read several books about AI, I'm sorry I didn't start with this as it gives an excellent overview of current research and debates concerning the positives and negatives (an understatement) of the whole area.

My son read this book after having his interest in AI piqued by reading Yuval Harari’s Homo Deus, if you liked the latter you should enjoy this book. It is easy to read without being too light on the subject matter; I have been struggling through Nick Bostrom’s Superintelligence and now i am motivated to finish it with the benefit of reading Surviving AI.

The book started off a bit slow for me but by the time I got to Part Two I couldn't put it down. And now my radar is up for things I didn't know existed before reading this. Neuralink, CSER, Future of Humanity Institute. And how does our species grow with a benign AI? (Hoping it is benign).

I thoroughly enjoyed this well thought out primer on AI and the potential effects it can have on all of us in the very near future. I particularly liked the way it was able to delve into deeper explanation of the concepts that were introduced in the fiction prelude to this one, "Pandora's Brain". I highly recommend to anyone interested in AI to add this one to their collection!

Calum blickt auf ein Studium der Philosophie und eine 30 jährige Karriere zurück, in der er als Journalist, Marketingfachmann, Strategieberater und CEO tätig war. Seit 2012 ist er auch als Schriftsteller tätig und verfasst unter anderem Bücher zum Thema "künstliche Intelligenz". Sein beruflicher Werdegang und seine in dieser Zeit erlernte Herangehensweise ist dafür verantwortlich, dass er das Thema "künstliche Intelligenz" relativ nüchtern und ohne Sternchen in den Augen betrachtet. In seinem Buch "Surviving A.I." prophezeit er deshalb auch nichts bezüglich unserer Zukunft sondern weist lediglich auf mögliche, uns erwartende Entwicklungen hin. Er erklärt die Unterschiede zwischen AI, ANI, AGI, ASI, ANN und FAI. Geht auf die Geschichte der AI Forschung ein und befasst sich mit dem gegenwärtigen Stand der Entwicklung. Wo heute schon überall AI benutzt wird und welche Rückschläge die Forschung hinnehmen hat müssen. Was uns in Zukunft erwarten kann und ob wir das Internet der Dinge nutzen werden oder ob uns synthetische Humanoide das Leben erleichtern werden. Er schreibt über ökonomische Singularität, Bayes'sche Netze, exponentielles Wachstum, Deep Learning und Automatisierung und welche Auswirkungen all dies auf unsere Gesellschaft haben kann. Er erklärt was Deep Learning, das Hidden Markov Model oder künstliche neuronale Netze sind und weist auch auf jene Personen und Unternehmen hin, die man als Elite im Bereich der künstlichen Intelligenz bezeichnen kann. In den letzteren Kapiteln geht es dann auch mal philosophischer zu. Welche Auswirkungen es haben könnte wenn sich eine von uns entwickelte künstliche Intelligenz zu einer uns freundlich, feindlich oder gleichgültig gesinnten Superintelligenz entwickeln würde. Wie wir das vermeiden oder kontrollieren könnten. Ob und wie uns dies überhaupt möglich sein könnte. Wer also zum Thema AI, auf leichte und verständliche Art und Weise, auf aktuellen Stand gebracht werden will und auch ein wenig in die Zukunft blicken möchte, dem ist dieses Buch absolut zu empfehlen. Vorausgesetzt man ist der englischen Sprache mächtig und scheut sich nicht davor, hin und wieder mal den einen oder anderen Begriff selbst im Netz ergänzend zu recherchieren. Ich kenn Calum von Twitter, habe mir die Kindle-Version gekauft, wurde für dieses Review nicht entlohnt und bin froh, dass ich unter all der Vielfalt an Büchern zum Thema "künstliche Intelligenz", sein Buch ausgewählt habe.

Excellent book, really well written and full of great insights. No technical jargon, no far fetched concept : this book is wonderfully balanced to pin point the right questions. This book triggers many really fun lines of thoughts that are good to follow :)

Calum's book is easy to read and sets out the different types of Artificial Intelligence while delving into where we are at the current time and where we might be according to different sectors of the technology industry in the future. The analysis of the benefits and dangers seem well balanced and avoid science fiction like scenarios. Calum manages to transmit his fascination for the subject while keeping a level headed and well structured narrative throughout the book. I would have liked more on Rokos Basilisk.....