Human Compatible: AI and the Problem of Control - Softcover

Russell, Stuart

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141987502 ISBN 13: 9780141987507

Publisher: Penguin, 2020

Synopsis

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, 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 read to understand a future that is coming sooner than we think.

About this title

Review

Surely the most important book on AI this year. (Ian Sample The Guardian, Book of the Day)

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 The Spectator)

Fascinating and significant. (James McConnachie The Sunday Times)

Worth reading Human Compatible by Stuart Russell (he's great!) about future AI risks and solutions. (Elon Musk Twitter)

A thought-provoking and highly readable account of the past, present and future of AI . . . Russell deploys a bracing intellectual rigour . . . but a laconic style and dry humour keep his book accessible to the lay reader. (The Financial Times)

An excellent, nuanced history. (The Telegraph, Best New Science Books for Christmas)

Russell is an assiduous and conscientious scholar ... [he] provides a wealth of information. This is one of those intellectual voyages where both the journey and the destination matter. (John Naughton The Literary Review)

This is the most important book I have read in quite some time. It lucidly explains how the coming age of artificial super-intelligence threatens human control. Crucially, it also introduces a novel solution and a reason for hope. (Daniel Kahneman, winner of the Nobel Prize and author of 'Thinking, Fast and Slow')

Of the many books published this year on artificial intelligence, this is probably the best. Stimulating and scary stuff. (Best Books of 2019: Technology The Financial Times)

A must-read: this intellectual tour-de-force by one of AI's true pioneers not only explains the risks of ever more powerful artificial intelligence in a captivating and persuasive way, but also proposes a concrete and promising solution. (Professor Max Tegmark, MIT, author of 'Life 3.0')

About the Author

Stuart Russell is a professor of Computer Science and holder of the Smith-Zadeh Chair in Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and an Honorary Fellow of Wadham College, University of Oxford. He has advised Number 10 and the United Nations about the risks of AI. In 1990, he received the Presidential Young Investigator Award of the National Science Foundation, in 1995 he was co-winner of the Computers and Thought Award and in 2005 he received the ACM Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award. He is the author (with Peter Norvig) of Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, the Number One bestselling textbook in AI which is used in over 1,300 universities in 118 countries around the world. He was born in England and lives in Berkeley.

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2020
• ISBN 10: 0141987502
• ISBN 13: 9780141987507
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384