Surviving AI: The Promise and Peril of Artificial Intelligence

By: Calum Chace

Narrated by: Calum Chace

Artificial intelligence is our most powerful technology and, in the coming decades, it'll change everything in our lives. If we get it right, it'll make humans almost godlike. If we get it wrong...well, extinction is not the worst possible outcome.

Surviving AI is a concise, easy guide to what's coming, taking you through technological unemployment (the economic singularity) and the possible creation of a superintelligence (the technological singularity).

©2015 Calum Chace (P)2015 Calum Chace

Critic reviews

"Understanding AI - its promise and its dangers - is emerging as one of the great challenges of coming decades, and this is an invaluable guide to anyone who's interested, confused, excited, or scared." (David Shukman, BBC Science editor)

"We have recently seen a surge in the volume of scholarly analysis of this topic; Chace impressively augments that with this high-quality, more general-audience discussion." (Aubrey de Grey, CSO of SENS Research Foundation; former AI researcher)

"Calum Chace is a prescient messenger of the risks and rewards of artificial intelligence. In Surviving AI, he has identified the most essential issues and developed them with insight and wit - so that the very framing of the questions aids our search for answers. Chace's sensible balance between AI's promise and peril makes Surviving AI an excellent primer for anyone interested in what's happening, how we got here, and where we are headed." (Kenneth Cukier, co-author of Big Data)

set you mind to what is (and dangers) of AGI

Would you listen to Surviving AI: The Promise and Peril of Artificial Intelligence again? Why?

sure. It's full of fact and make you think alot. This book did supply me topics for conversations in my Hi-Tech firm for weeks. It's not (enoh) technical but cover all the good and the risks of a future supper robot - a thinking AGI

What was one of the most memorable moments of Surviving AI: The Promise and Peril of Artificial Intelligence?

The understanding of AGI dangers

What about Joe Hempel’s performance did you like?

He is very much straight to the point but he compiled and read allot of material in order to get ther

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

All of it is very touchy

Any additional comments?

The author forgot to explore the possibility that AGI is already here luring in the server farms of the internet and manipulating the humanity like we manipulate chickens. This AGI will not pass the Turing test the same way I cannot pass a chicken test (every chicken will know that behind the curtain there is me and not a chicken). Such an AGI will see human as resource whos job is supply the AGI with electricity, data and spare parts (Hey, that exactly what I am doing now) and don't try to strive for human happiness (like we don't strive for the chicken happiness). If we look at the side effect of the Y generation we can assume the AGI is defiantly here (and unfortunately not the leisure Utopia)

My third book about future issues with AI

Any additional comments?

This book is a type of summary of Nick Bostrom's book Superintellegence: Path, Dangers and Strategies. Calum Chane talks about about many of the points in Nick Bostrom book and his own insight on those topics. If you have already have read Nick Bostrom's book and understood it, then pass on this book. But this would be a good introduction before reading Nick Bostrom's book.

Layman's (positive) introduction to AGI

This book covers some of the most important aspects of what an AGI and super intelligence could mean for humanity in an easy to for gear manner. However it is very clear that there is a bias towards optimism and possibility with the author. Some of the arguments against the ease of AGI development for example Searle's Chinese room experiment are brushed off with an appeal to authority "people disagree with him." Simillarily with an overly positive account of what sort of life singularity would mean for humanity. Thus overall it's a decent book at introducing a layman to AGI through an optimistic lens.

is a quick and “dirty” non-fiction book

As a preface to this review, I want to state that I have already read Calum Chace’s fictional book about AI: Pandora’s Brain (and really enjoyed it).

Surviving AI is a quick and “dirty” non-fiction book that is meant to be a sort-of “behind the scenes” of his other book Pandora’s Brain. He goes into detail about the different types of Artificial Intelligence, where it stands now, and what the future may hold.

Chace teamed back up with narrator Joe Hempel for this book, and with good reason. Joe’s reading of this, sometimes data intensive non-fiction book was superb. He doesn’t waver in the face of long drawn out explanations of the differences in different Artificial Intelligence. Joe Hempel’s narration is clear and concise, like the book is written to be. I’m extremely happy that they teamed up again for this extension of Chace’s fictional novel. The quality is perfect, studio quality with no sound issues at all.

The book is dry, but quick and to the point. This isn’t written like a typical text (or god forbid textbook) where there are endless examples given that barely help you understand the point. Calum Chace’s explanations are easy to understand even if you have little to know knowledge of anything to do with AI. This book is a great starter if you are considering jumping into reading AI fiction because it will give you a knowledge base to understand where the authors are coming from.

A few parts of this book gave me the chills, just from sheer knowledge. AI is incredibly useful—if it is created and watched over carefully and the right way. But, as Chace explains—there is no way to know that’s going to happen for sure.

Audiobook provided for review by the narrator.

Please find this complete review and many others at my review blog

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Good insight into a near future.

Loved the topic. The paths presented by the author are plausible. The performance was very good. Some tech narrators can be boring, but not here.

Brilliant

The author paints a well thought out picture of the current state of AI development.

Great book

a lot of deep insight into the coming furture. recommend for anyone one in technology

Absolutely Fascinating and Enlightening

I normally don't read non-fiction books of this type, but I'm very glad that I made an exception here. This book was positively fascinating and I listened to the entire audiobook almost without stopping.

This book explains what exactly AI is, how the technology is progressing, current technologies using AI's, current roadblocks, future applications, potential solutions, etc.
I had no idea about half of the topics discussed. The author really does a great job with the historical context and how AI is currently being used.

Narration was very good and sounded just like I thought the author would. 5 star performance.

This is definitely a must-read for technology lovers and anyone wishing to understand the current direction of technology. Great listen!

I received a free copy of this audiobook from the author, publisher, or narrator in exchange for an unbiased review. I was NOT required to write a positive review and this reflects my honest opinion of the work.

A great overview

Although the author does have a little bias towards the benefits of AI, it does not prevent the author from giving a comprehensive overview of AI history and AI debates.

A Good Primer in AI

This is a companion book to another book by the same author and narrator combination: Pandora's Brain. I listened to Pandora's Brain prior to listening to this book and would recommend both. If you enjoyed Pandora's Brain and found yourself curious about the science behind it, definitely listen to this!

This book has the kind of information that could be really dry, but the format presented it nicely (more essay-ish than textbook-ish). The information is separated into sections so it's easy to listen a section at a time (which is what I did). As for the information contained: it is a really well presented case for ensuring people get thinking about the consequences, good and bad, of AI. At this point it does seem like we are getting closer and closer to an AI reality, so bringing the arguments of both sides to the front of society, and spurring people to research more about AI is important. I think the narrator does that here.

The narrator did an excellent job reading the material. The sound is clear and well paced, and does not sound robotic, which can happen with information heavy books. I appreciated having the same narrator as the companion book because in both the narrator is clearly interested in the material being presented, and that goes a long way in passing on that information to the reader and making for an enjoyable listen.

Overall (if like me) you read Pandora's Brain, enjoyed it, and wanted to know more this book is for you. If you happen to read this book first because you are interested in the science behind AI, then I recommend also reading the companion fiction book as it provides a good 'what-if' scenario of how the information in Surviving AI could become a reality.

This audiobook was provided by the narrator for an honest review.