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mattyd2468's review against another edition
4.0
Solid book this. Well written and nicely set out.
I much preferred the first half with the focus on the technical side and how AI works and the different possibilities it has in the future.
The discussion on consciousness was interesting and I would be interested in reading more in depth in a different book.
Overall a bit dry but interesting
I much preferred the first half with the focus on the technical side and how AI works and the different possibilities it has in the future.
The discussion on consciousness was interesting and I would be interested in reading more in depth in a different book.
Overall a bit dry but interesting
sascha_z's review against another edition
2.0
Life 3.0 is best described as a downhill slope.
The book starts out with its climax – the title. “Life 3.0” is the author’s cleverly self-referential code for artificial intelligence (AI), more precisely beyond-human-level (or general) intelligence. In Tegmark’s view, this contrasts with low-level “Life 1.0” (where any kind of intelligence or “software” is genetically hard-wired and only changes with evolution) and human “Life 2.0” (whose software can be changed through learning and communication). By contrast, artificial (super-)intelligence is based on “hardware” that is no longer subject to evolution but may be designed at will. Just at whose will?
A hint at the potential opportunities and dangers inherent in unleashing superintelligence is given in the book’s engaging prelude. It is the story of a fictitious Google-style “Omega team”, who use AI to... well, take over the world. Rather than explicitly introducing this as a thought experiment, it dives straight into a world which, at least in the story’s early pages, might well be ours. That makes it genuinely scary and thought-provoking. It is bit quirky a start for a work of non-fiction but, ironically, by far the book’s best and most intriguing part.
It goes downhill from there. In the first two regular chapters, Tegmark lays out some introductory concepts, ranging from biological evolution and intelligence to complexity, memory, and learning. He does a decent job at juxtaposing biologically familiar terms and more general, artificially created counterparts. However, I did not feel this part was as inspiring as it might have been, and I did not feel I learned a whole lot about the mechanisms of machine learning etc.
The book then moves on to inspect the implications of AI upon the near future, such as consequences for the job market or weapons. This part probably is most relevant to the present-day discussion of AI. However, its presentation was also somewhat uninspiring, as if the author was keen to move on to his own favorite topics in the ensuing chapters. This is where the book starts to drift off completely into wild speculation:
How exactly will AI take over the world?
How will it rule it in the next 10,000 years?
And how will it perpetuate life throughout the cosmos over the next billion years?
I agree all these are conceivable scenarios, but I found them so utterly hypothetical and bleak that I prayed for the chapters to wrap up soon. They didn’t. Had these scenarios been presented by a gifted sci-fi writer, they might have caught my imagination. But he was ticking them off in the spirit of a checklist, rounded off by a dash of alarmism.
In the closing chapters, the problem of anchoring human-friendly goals in AI is discussed, along with some musings on consciousness. Especially the latter topic might have been tremendously interesting, had it not been treated in an equally superficial and dull fashion. However, the ultimate low point of the book comes with its fairly unnecessary epilogue – where the author brags at tedious length about setting up his own institute and how he got Elon Musk to fund it.
This is emblematic of the book’s weakness: It might well have been much more focused, presented with a strong narrative, and stripped of an annoying amount of name-dropping and self-advertising. Unfortunately, the abundant use of the word “amazing” does not make up for an inspired writing style.
The book starts out with its climax – the title. “Life 3.0” is the author’s cleverly self-referential code for artificial intelligence (AI), more precisely beyond-human-level (or general) intelligence. In Tegmark’s view, this contrasts with low-level “Life 1.0” (where any kind of intelligence or “software” is genetically hard-wired and only changes with evolution) and human “Life 2.0” (whose software can be changed through learning and communication). By contrast, artificial (super-)intelligence is based on “hardware” that is no longer subject to evolution but may be designed at will. Just at whose will?
A hint at the potential opportunities and dangers inherent in unleashing superintelligence is given in the book’s engaging prelude. It is the story of a fictitious Google-style “Omega team”, who use AI to... well, take over the world. Rather than explicitly introducing this as a thought experiment, it dives straight into a world which, at least in the story’s early pages, might well be ours. That makes it genuinely scary and thought-provoking. It is bit quirky a start for a work of non-fiction but, ironically, by far the book’s best and most intriguing part.
It goes downhill from there. In the first two regular chapters, Tegmark lays out some introductory concepts, ranging from biological evolution and intelligence to complexity, memory, and learning. He does a decent job at juxtaposing biologically familiar terms and more general, artificially created counterparts. However, I did not feel this part was as inspiring as it might have been, and I did not feel I learned a whole lot about the mechanisms of machine learning etc.
The book then moves on to inspect the implications of AI upon the near future, such as consequences for the job market or weapons. This part probably is most relevant to the present-day discussion of AI. However, its presentation was also somewhat uninspiring, as if the author was keen to move on to his own favorite topics in the ensuing chapters. This is where the book starts to drift off completely into wild speculation:
How exactly will AI take over the world?
How will it rule it in the next 10,000 years?
And how will it perpetuate life throughout the cosmos over the next billion years?
I agree all these are conceivable scenarios, but I found them so utterly hypothetical and bleak that I prayed for the chapters to wrap up soon. They didn’t. Had these scenarios been presented by a gifted sci-fi writer, they might have caught my imagination. But he was ticking them off in the spirit of a checklist, rounded off by a dash of alarmism.
In the closing chapters, the problem of anchoring human-friendly goals in AI is discussed, along with some musings on consciousness. Especially the latter topic might have been tremendously interesting, had it not been treated in an equally superficial and dull fashion. However, the ultimate low point of the book comes with its fairly unnecessary epilogue – where the author brags at tedious length about setting up his own institute and how he got Elon Musk to fund it.
This is emblematic of the book’s weakness: It might well have been much more focused, presented with a strong narrative, and stripped of an annoying amount of name-dropping and self-advertising. Unfortunately, the abundant use of the word “amazing” does not make up for an inspired writing style.
rihoke's review
4.0
I actually quite enjoyed reading this book. Got me thinking about the defining questions of the future. also gave me (a newcomer in the AI-studies field) a good overview on the problems we face today involving the ever evolving AI. I skipped the more speculative chapters, which was also "encouraged" by the author, for they didn't interest me as much.
stumpnugget's review against another edition
4.0
Excellent survey of the AI problem.
Also, we're doomed.
Maybe we aren't.
But, yeah, we probably are.
Also, we're doomed.
Maybe we aren't.
But, yeah, we probably are.
mxbh35's review against another edition
Good book but got sick of the topic. Too optimistic or too pessimistic, don’t know what to think and this is all hypothetical
jjzsilva9's review
5.0
Very interesting and covers a broad range of topics. Gave me several existential crises.