The Rationalist’s Guide to the Galaxy

Author Tom Chivers
Narrator Tom Chivers
Publisher Orion
Run Time 8 hours and 13 minutes
Format Audio
Genre Artificial intelligence, Cognition and cognitive psychology, Philosophy of mind, Social forecasting, future studies.

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What to expect

'A fascinating and delightfully written book about some very smart people who may not, or may, be about to transform humanity forever' JON RONSON

'The AI does not hate you, nor does it love you, but you are made of atoms which it can use for something else'
This is a book about AI and AI risk. But it's also more importantly about a community of people who are trying to think rationally about intelligence, and the places that these thoughts are taking them, and what insight they can and can't give us about the future of the human race over the next few years. It explains why these people are worried, why they might be right, and why they might be wrong.
It isn't, on the other hand, a book about the future - it doesn't try to guess how many of us are going to be put out of work by AI, or what the operating system in your house might be able to do ten years hence. Instead, this is a book about the cutting edge of our thinking on intelligence and rationality right now by the people who stay up all night worrying about it.
Along the way, we discover why we probably don't need to worry about a future AI resurrecting a perfect copy of our minds and torturing us for not inventing it sooner but we should be concerned about paperclips destroying life as we know it; how Mickey Mouse can teach us an important lesson about how to programme AI; and why Spock is not as logical as we think he is.

(p) Orion Publishing Group Ltd 2019

Critics Review

A fascinating and delightfully written book about some very smart people who may not, or may, be about to transform humanity forever

Artificial Intelligence, of a superhuman level, is coming. But how soon will it emerge, and how will it impact our world? Will it offer us salvation or bring apocalypse? In this utterly captivating book, Tom Chivers meets both the computer engineers working to build an AI and the Rationalists striving to prevent the worst. Beautifully written, and with wonderful humour, this is a thrilling adventure story of our own future

LEWIS DARTNELL, author of THE KNOWLEDGE and ORIGINS

Tom Chivers’ meticulously researched book is intriguing, persuasive and eye-opening. His writing is warm and witty as he takes us on a surprisingly moving journey to decide – rationally – whether we really are playing Russian roulette with our future

HANNAH FRY, author of HELLO WORLD

This book is about so much more than AI. It’s about what happens when an attempt at perfectly rational behaviour meets the messy complications of humanity and its achievements. In an increasingly digitised world, the outcome has something to say about us all. The brilliance of this book is the challenge it presents, because we can’t examine the Rationalists without also examining ourselves. Tom Chivers is a fascinating and honest guide along that bumpy road

DR HELEN CZERSKI, author of THE STORM IN A TEACUP

Tom Chivers’ book is like a self-help guide to stop panicking about technology for people who watched Terminator too many times when they were young. The content is completely gripping. But I think the thing I like best is the tone. He has this OK-lets-all-chill-out-and-look-at-this-rationally approach which makes me feel, for whole minutes at a time, that maybe things are going to be OK and we won’t all die in hellfire

IAN DUNT, editor of politics.co.uk and author of BREXIT: WHAT THE HELL HAPPENS NOW?

In this informative account of his encounters with the Rationalists . . . Tom Chivers follows a formula pioneered by those chronicling Silicon Valley for Wired magazine in the 1990s. He writes movingly about his insecurities over what the future will bring, telling the head of CFAR, “I’m scared for my children” . . . It is a resonant moment’

TLS

An intellectual history of our times

THE TIMES

Excellent

THE BIG ISSUE

Brilliant

RAIA HADSELL, Research Director, DeepMind

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