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  • Superintelligence

  • Paths, Dangers, Strategies
  • By: Nick Bostrom
  • Narrated by: Napoleon Ryan
  • Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (226 ratings)

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Superintelligence

By: Nick Bostrom
Narrated by: Napoleon Ryan
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Publisher's Summary

Superintelligence asks the questions: What happens when machines surpass humans in general intelligence? Will artificial agents save or destroy us? Nick Bostrom lays the foundation for understanding the future of humanity and intelligent life. The human brain has some capabilities that the brains of other animals lack. It is to these distinctive capabilities that our species owes its dominant position. If machine brains surpassed human brains in general intelligence, then this new superintelligence could become extremely powerful - possibly beyond our control. As the fate of the gorillas now depends more on humans than on the species itself, so would the fate of humankind depend on the actions of the machine superintelligence.

But we have one advantage: We get to make the first move. Will it be possible to construct a seed Artificial Intelligence, to engineer initial conditions so as to make an intelligence explosion survivable? How could one achieve a controlled detonation?

This profoundly ambitious and original book breaks down a vast track of difficult intellectual terrain. After an utterly engrossing journey that takes us to the frontiers of thinking about the human condition and the future of intelligent life, we find in Nick Bostrom's work nothing less than a reconceptualization of the essential task of our time.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio.

©2014 Nick Bostrom (P)2014 Audible Inc.

What listeners say about Superintelligence

Average Customer Ratings
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Maybe it's a good book...

Maybe it actually is a good book, the subject sounds interesting enough but the monotone, emotionless and just plain hard to listen to voice of the narrator makes it impossible to endure. the whole idea of an audio book is that you should be able to do simple tasks while you listen being that driving or washing the dishes, but this audiobook will force you to concentrate way too much to understand the narrator, it makes it a chore. not at all pleasant.

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6 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Too many acronyms and references to locations in the physical book.

Too many acronyms mentioned forced me to remind me what they meant. References to “see table below” or “as mentioned above” shouldn’t be in an audiobook.

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3 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Great, but might be better in print

This book is great. It's comprehensive on the problem, by examining it in an unopinionated way from many different point of view, and it's full of inspiration and food for thought and later research.

On the other hand given the technicality of the content it's quite hard to follow in it's audio format.

I feel the print version might be more useful, because of the possibility to read and re-read passages in an easier way that what and audiobook offers.

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3 people found this helpful

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    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Interesting Topic... Difficult Read

AI is a very interesting topic, but the writing style of Nick Bostrom makes what is already a complicated topic even more difficult to understand by using overly ornate language. Long convoluted sentences, with lots of commas and references to footnotes. The way the narrator read the book made it sound even more aloof. A very hard book to get through.

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2 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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  • Lee
  • 24-12-2016

important & interesting

Amazing book. Some really interesting and important topics. I found it can be a bit hard going with very technical language at times.

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1 person found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Very comprehensive

Very comprehensive summary of the Superintelligence issues currently facing the world. Can be a heavy read (listen) in some parts, but generally very accessible.

A number of reviews suggest the narration is not a good fit for this genre of book (non-fiction perhaps), I personally found the English accent much easier to digest.

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1 person found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Terrifying

This book is an absolute must read. The case is compelling. I've read some people rejecting this book because they think Ai is a long way off or maybe entirely impossible. Any reader about to start this boom, I'd advise you go in with an open mind to two ideas. The first is that regardless of how long it takes building a human level Ai is possible. And the second is that such an Ai would be able to improve itself better than a human engineer.

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    3 out of 5 stars
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  • DDD
  • 11-05-2016

Interesting but long winded in some areas.

Interesting but long winded in some areas I felt by the 16th chapter that I had an in depth knowledge of something important with no one to share it with.

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1 person found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Accompanying PDF missing content

This book is excellent if somewhat dry. Very thought-provoking. It's a shame that several diagrams and tables referenced in the text are completely missing from the accompanying PDF. Makes it very hard to follow the related text. I had to find them myself online.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

A must read for anyone who has intelligence

Very complex yet totally understandable if you persist. Nick covers many answers to questions I had not even considered. I’m going to listen to this book a second time.

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