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Superintelligence Is Coming

This is historic. Many authors have published books with a “call to action” about the importance of machine superintelligence (including at least 4 books in the past 2 years):

But Nick Bostrom’s upcoming Superintelligence book is different. Even though it’s accessible to a wide audience, it doubles as a researcher-level survey of almost all major technical problems and approaches currently being studied by folks at MIRI and FHI. FAI research now has its first textbook.

Superintelligence is ”now shipping”. I’d recommend ordering it for at least 4 reasons:

  1. You’re gonna want to read it.
  2. Your purchase could help push the book up the charts in various Amazon categories (or into the NYT Best Seller list if we’re lucky)
  3. This book is the new textbook for the most important field of research in existence.
  4. You’ll be proud to have a 1st edition of this book one day. It’s like buying a copy of the paper the day JFK was shot… except actually important.

Author Description

Louie Helm is a Machine Learning Engineer

12 Responses to “Superintelligence Is Coming”

  1. July 16

    Evan Gaensbauer

    Purchasing the first edition dead-tree version of a book in the digital age seems to be a fashion statement. However, if I can purchase a digital copy for my Kindle, I’ll get on buying it, and reading it, today!

  3. July 16

    John Kennedy

    Sold!

  4. July 16

    tino

    confirmed: canadians can get a copy today (kindle included)

  5. July 16

    Adam Chalmers

    Wow, that sounds excellent. I’ll get a copy.

  6. July 17

    Lauri Myllyvirta

    Thanks for the tip – got the sample and will probably buy. The book seems already available for non Canadians as well unless you insist on using 15th century technology to read about the future.

  7. July 17

    Malcolm Ocean

    ^ well put.

  8. July 21

    David Landau

    Thanks for the endorsement, Louie. With so much new content, it’s great to know what’s most relevant.

  9. August 11

    Sergej Shegurin

    Do you think I can find something new and interesting in this book if I am professional AI researcher, and have read a comprehensive 468-page book on existential (global) risks?

  10. August 11

    Louie Helm

    Yes, there are new and interesting things in Nick’s book even for the most advanced readers. I would not claim that for all books on this topic. For instance, Facing the Intelligence Explosion and Smarter Than Us may possibly teach you nothing, if you’ve thought or read about this topic a fair amount.

  11. August 11

    Tai Nguyen

    Hey Louie, I enjoyed Smarter Than Us but it was a little too simplified for me. On the other hand, I’m not well-versed enough on the topic to be reading academic-level writing. Would you say that this one sits at the right level for a serious layman?

  12. August 11

    Louie Helm

    Superintelligence is dense but readable in my opinion. If you don’t want to get bogged down in the more academic minutiae, just read the first 260 pages and skip the last 50 pages of notes/citations.