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Human Compatible

AI and the Problem of Control

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Human Compatible

By: Stuart Russell
Narrated by: Raphael Corkhill
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About this listen

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Human Compatible by Stuart Russell.

Creating superior intelligence would be the biggest event in human history. Unfortunately, according to the world's pre-eminent AI expert, it could also be the last. In this groundbreaking book on the biggest question facing humanity, Stuart Russell explains why he has come to consider his own discipline an existential threat to his own species, and lays out how we can change course before it's too late. There is no one better placed to assess the promise and perils of the dominant technology of the future than Russell, who has spent decades at the forefront of AI research.

Through brilliant analogies and crisp, lucid prose, he explains how AI actually works, how it has an enormous capacity to improve our lives - but why we must ensure that we never lose control of machines more powerful than we are. Here Russell shows how we can avert the worst threats by reshaping the foundations of AI to guarantee that machines pursue our objectives, not theirs.

Profound, urgent and visionary, Human Compatible is the one book everyone needs to listen to understand a future that is coming sooner than we think.

©2019 Stuart Russell (P)2019 Penguin Audio Computer Science Future Studies History & Culture Machine Theory & Artificial Intelligence Social Sciences Technology & Society Technology Artificial Intelligence Robotics Data Science Machine Learning

Critic Reviews

Surely the most important book on AI this year. (Ian Sample)
A brilliantly clear and fascinating exposition of the history of computing thus far, and how very difficult true AI will be to build. (Steven Poole)
Fascinating and significant. (James McConnachie)
All stars
Most relevant  
enioyable look into AI problems, a lot of issues I never even thought about.

interesting listen

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excellent summary of why artificial general intelligence is going to be so difficult to achieve and also how hard it will be to control and avoid unintended consequences as we move towards it. not a deeply technical deep dive either - the author gets quite philosophical as he ponders approaches to AI safety

very insightful and not prone to hyperbole

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Stuart Russel has done a great job of summarising the larger questions of AI and draws from other excellent works.

Worth Your Time

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Masterfully crafted. At once laying waste to common myths and raising concerns few of us have thought of. Brilliant book.

Prescient and prophetic

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It is not until you dig into the decision tree of machines do you get an appreciation of how things can go wrong with AI. Stuart does a good job of providing examples of pitfalls we can expect. A number of times reference is given to the work of Nick Bostrom. The elephant in the room is that Nick’s Simulation Hypothesis means that in one form or another, we survived the flowering of AI. If you overlap the conclusions of this book with the best case scenario of AI, it paints quite a convincing scenario of us living inside and AI created computer simulation where we are safe, can express our preferences within safe limits and feel like we are in control. I would love to see him write another book like The Word of Bob - an AI Minecraft Villager, where he explores a world that AI has found a solution for mankind via a simulated world.

A readable summary of the issues of AI

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simply an awful book. makes wide ranging statements that are inaccurate or inappropriate. please do not buy this book

awful

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