Life 3.0
by Max Tegmark · first published 2017
56% recommend40% neutral4% critical
Why HN recommends it
Accessible primer on superintelligence and the intelligence explosion, with plausible fictional scenarios, outcome surveys and a take on consciousness; suits readers wanting AI's big-picture, philosophical side.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
"How will artificial intelligence affect crime, war, justice, jobs, society and our very sense of being human? The rise of AI has the potential to transform our future more than any other technology--and there's nobody better qualified or situated to explore that future than Max Tegmark, an MIT professor who's helped mainstream research on how to keep AI beneficial. How can we grow our prosperity through automation without leaving people lacking income or purpose? What career advice should we give today's kids? How can we make future AI systems more robust, so that they do what we want without
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…damaging thing won't happen). This is important because in a catastrophic superintelligent AI scenario, the damage is irreparable (e.g. all humanity dies in 12 hours). For a good intro to these topics, Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark is a good resource. Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom as well. For a shorter read, see this blog post: https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revol... For general information…
on “Ask HN: Examples of AI ethical principles?” ↗Some books I enjoyed in the past years: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28256439-the-hidden-life... https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34272565-life-3-0 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19395553-our-mathematica... https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28116739-other-minds https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30555486-to-be-a-machine https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7972148-proofiness…
on “Science Books of 2019” ↗…we need to make about it as a society, and not have prominent voices writing about knee-jerk reactions making authoritative demands to a specific public demo after just a day. (See Max Tegmark's book Life 3.0 for the kinds of stuff we need more of being put into the world imho.)
on “Google Grapples with ‘Horrifying’ Reaction to Uncanny AI Tech” ↗Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark - great glimpse into the current and potential future of AI Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Issacson - fascinating look into the real life of Leonardo, demystifying the genius Excession by…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2018?” ↗Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence [by Max Tegmark] > When they launched, Prometheus was slightly worse than them at programming AI systems, but made up for this by being vastly faster,…
on “Ask HN: Recommend one book I need to read this summer?” ↗…of the original sources for a lot of the ideas): https://www.amazon.com/Superintelligence-Dangers-Strategies-... - Human Compatible: https://www.amazon.com/Human-Compatible-Artificial-Intellige... - Life 3.0, A lot of the same ideas, but the other extreme of writing style from superintelligence makes it more accessible: https://www.amazon.com/Life-3-0-Being-Artificial-Intelligenc... Blog Posts: - https://intelligence.org/2017/10/13/fire-alarm/…
on “Still alive” ↗…that direction in the future. Meh. I'd strongly recommend reading one of the three (excellent) books he cites early on: Nick Bostrom’s “Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies,” Max Tegmark’s “Life 3.0: Being Human in the age of Artificial Intelligence,” and Stuart Russell’s “Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control” for a more rigorous treatment of the subject.
on “Why Computers Won't Make Themselves Smarter” ↗A good, recent, and comprehensive primer on intelligence explosion and its theoretical implication: "Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence" by MIT physicist Max Tegmark.
on “A Reply to François Chollet on Intelligence Explosion” ↗…(https://books.google.com/books?id=OoLNzl4XpPUC) A good follow-up to "The Information" Scale - Geoffrey West (https://books.google.com/books?id=bJPZDAAAQBAJ) Covers the kind of fundamentals of science everyone should understand. Life 3.0 - Max Tegmark (https://books.google.com/books?id=2hIcDgAAQBAJ) The Master Algorithm - Pedro Domingos (https://books.google.com/books?id=CPgqCgAAQBAJ) These two go nicely together The Death of Expertise…
on “Ask HN: Favorite nonfiction books of 2018?” ↗If by "sufficiently complex things" Stent means "things like consciousness," I found Max Tegmark's hypothesis in "Life 3.0" compelling: that just as information can arise from an arrangement of matter (data on a magnetic disk), consciousness might arise from an arrangement of information.
on “Brain Simulation Promised a Decade Ago Hasn't Succeeded” ↗For those interested in the intelligence to consciousness topic, MIT Max Tegmark's Life 3.0 might still be the best primer. He argues that consciousness is an emergent property of intelligent systems (ability to store, compute, learn). From a pure physical computation standpoint, there doesn't…
on “Can AI Become Conscious?” ↗I laughed That said, like any other skill, there will be a day when AI actually surpasses humans at it. Moravec and Tegmark convinced me of it. (The prelude to Tegmark's fascinating LIFE 3.0 is online: https://www.marketingfirst.co.nz/storage/2018/06/prelude-lif...) PS: I laughed more from the xkcd link posted before by u/ignoranceprior https://xkcd.com/1263/
on “Software Dev Can't Be Automated – It’s a Creative Process with an Unknown Goal” ↗…Darwinian nature. Essentially, if a nation possesses some opportunity but doesn’t possess the means to defend it, it belongs to whichever nation is strong enough to come and take it. Also, Max Tegmark’s Life 3.0 book has a fascinating fictional story about a company that uses AI to drive a new world order, back towards the center. It is both exceptionally hand-wavey but also not entirely unbelievable. Not necessarily…
on “The need for world government” ↗Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark is great. It reads like a text book. It's several years old though and I wonder how much has changed since it was written.
on “John Carmack's new AGI company, Keen Technologies, has raised a $20M round” ↗I thought Max Tegmark’s Life 3.0 was interesting. But with all this future prediction stuff, best to take it with a grain of salt.
on “Ask HN: Book recommendations for ChatGPT shaped future?” ↗