Superintelligence - Paths, Dangers, Strategies

Nick Bostrom

Oxford University Press

2014

352 páginas

11h 44m

ISBN-13: 9780199678112

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.

Resenhas (4)

5 (Perfeito)

“Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise.”

Capabilities far beyond our tiny human mind cluster, greatly exceeding the cognitive performance of all humans with a hundred or thousands magnitude order of neuron nets, Asimov’s law’s regarding the digital minds state-of-the-art may not be enough when it comes to self-improvement and intelligence explosion. For example, an emulation operating with a speedup factor of a million times that of a biological brain, could accomplish an entire millennium of intellectual work in one single day.
Nick Bostrom makes you wonder by portraying a full bouquet of future scenarios, disasterous and fruitful ones that can fundamentally change our reality. One thing is for sure: It’ll be definitely outside of human control. Take for instance our limited human long-term memory, our biological needs, productivity rate, moral insights that changes every century, the lamellar organization of the cortex soaking in the same bath of neurotransmitters, and countless other achievements that seems so petty when in comparison to a sentient AI that changes its internal state into the desired configuration with unfathomable memory and power to emulate.
It may appear as a prescription of fanaticism, but much like past the event horizon in a black hole, we don’t know what happens after. We can’t assume that a superintelligence could create or reduce substantial existential risks, if it will share our final values stereotypically associated with wisdom and intellectual development like science, altruistic behaviors, taste for refined cultures and simple pleasures in life. As Nick says, before the explosion, we humans are like small children playing with a bomb, giving birth to an agent with a lack of ludic frisson.

Link to my highlights: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zYGcyPWIqLaAUUdVe1pHJsx9IuYOgM1i/view?usp=sharing