[PDF] The Rationalists Guide To The Galaxy eBook

Author : Tom Chivers
Publisher : Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Page : 304 pages
File Size : 35,57 MB
Release : 2019-06-13
Category : Computers
ISBN : 1474608809

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'A fascinating and delightfully written book about some very smart people who may not, or may, be about to transform humanity forever' JON RONSON 'Beautifully written, and with wonderful humour, this is a thrilling adventure story of our own future' LEWIS DARTNELL, author of THE KNOWLEDGE and ORIGINS Are paperclips going to destroy life as we know it? What can Mickey Mouse teach us about how to programme AI? Could a more rational approach to life be what saves us all? This is a book about about a community of people who are trying to think rationally about intelligence and what insight they can and can't give us about the future of the human race. It explains why these people are worried about an AI apocalypse, why they might be right, and why they might be wrong. It 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.

Author : Tom Chivers
Publisher :
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 37,91 MB
Release : 2019
Category : Artificial intelligence
ISBN : 9781474608770

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A deep-dive into the weird and wonderful world of Artificial Intelligence. '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 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 perhaps should be concerned about paperclips destroying life as we know it; how Mickey Mouse can teach us an important lesson about how to program AI; and how a more rational approach to life could be what saves us all. --

Author : Jostein Gaarder
Publisher : Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Page : 735 pages
File Size : 26,24 MB
Release : 2007-03-20
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 1466804270

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A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.

Author : Toby Ord
Publisher : Hachette Books
Page : 480 pages
File Size : 28,12 MB
Release : 2020-03-24
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 031648489X

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This urgent and eye-opening book makes the case that protecting humanity's future is the central challenge of our time. If all goes well, human history is just beginning. Our species could survive for billions of years - enough time to end disease, poverty, and injustice, and to flourish in ways unimaginable today. But this vast future is at risk. With the advent of nuclear weapons, humanity entered a new age, where we face existential catastrophes - those from which we could never come back. Since then, these dangers have only multiplied, from climate change to engineered pathogens and artificial intelligence. If we do not act fast to reach a place of safety, it will soon be too late. Drawing on over a decade of research, The Precipice explores the cutting-edge science behind the risks we face. It puts them in the context of the greater story of humanity: showing how ending these risks is among the most pressing moral issues of our time. And it points the way forward, to the actions and strategies that can safeguard humanity. An Oxford philosopher committed to putting ideas into action, Toby Ord has advised the US National Intelligence Council, the UK Prime Minister's Office, and the World Bank on the biggest questions facing humanity. In The Precipice, he offers a startling reassessment of human history, the future we are failing to protect, and the steps we must take to ensure that our generation is not the last. "A book that seems made for the present moment." —New Yorker

Author : Robin Hanson
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 522 pages
File Size : 12,78 MB
Release : 2016
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 0198754620

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Robots may one day rule the world, but what is a robot-ruled Earth like? Many think that the first truly smart robots will be brain emulations or "ems." Robin Hanson draws on decades of expertise in economics, physics, and computer science to paint a detailed picture of this next great era in human (and machine) evolution - the age of em.

Author : Paul Fussell
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 212 pages
File Size : 27,1 MB
Release : 1992
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0671792253

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This book describes the living-room artifacts, clothing styles, and intellectual proclivities of American classes from top to bottom.

Author : Ron Currie
Publisher : Penguin
Page : 337 pages
File Size : 49,91 MB
Release : 2018-04-03
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 0143110454

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From the “startlingly talented” (New York Times) author of Everything Matters!—a bold and timely novel about a grieving man dedicated to unmasking the role that lies and delusions play in our reactionary times "Nobody writing today walks the knife edge of cynicism and sentiment more bravely, intelligently and confidently than Ron Currie. By turns hilarious and heartfelt, The One-Eyed Man is a revelation, a wonder." --Richard Russo “Dark, tender, and oh-so-timely.” – USA Today Ron Currie’s three previous works of fiction have dazzled readers and critics alike with their originality, audacity, and psychological insight. A writer of unique vision and huge imagination, Currie excels at creating complex, troubled, yet endearing characters, and his work has won comparison to everyone from Kurt Vonnegut to George Saunders. K., the narrator of Currie’s new novel, joins the ranks of other great American literary creations who show us something new about ourselves. Like Jack Gladney from White Noise, K. is possessed of a hyper-articulate exasperation with the world, and like Ignatius J. Reilly in A Confederacy of Dunces, he is a doomed truth teller whom everyone misunderstands. After his wife Sarah dies, K.becomes so wedded to the notion of clarity that he infuriates friends and strangers alike. When he intervenes in an armed robbery, K. finds himself both an inadvertent hero and the star of a new reality television program. Together with Claire, a grocery store clerk with a sharp tongue and a yen for celebrity, he travels the country, ruffling feathers and gaining fame at the intersection of American politics and entertainment. But soon he discovers that the world will fight viciously to preserve its delusions about itself. How Currie's unconventional hero comes to find peace, to reenter the world, and to be touched again by emotion and empathy makes for a dramatic, utterly memorable story.

Author : Alister E. McGrath
Publisher : Westminster John Knox Press
Page : 112 pages
File Size : 46,87 MB
Release : 2011-02-01
Category : Religion
ISBN : 1611640997

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We live in an age when the growth of the Internet has made it easier than ever to gain access to information and accumulate knowledge. But information is not the same as meaning, nor is knowledge identical with wisdom. Many people feel engulfed by a tsunami of facts in which they can find no meaning. In thirteen short, accessible chapters McGrath, author of the bestselling The Dawkins Delusion, leads the reader through a nontechnical discussion of science and faith. How do we make sense of the world around us? Are belief in science and the Christian faith compatible? Does the structure of the universe point toward the existence of God? McGrath's goal is to help readers see that science is neither anathema to faith, nor does it supersede faith. Both science and faith help with the overriding human desire to make sense of things. Faith is a complex idea. It is not a blind leap into the dark but a joyful discovery of a bigger picture of wondrous things of which we are all a part.

Author : David Graeber
Publisher : Melville House
Page : 274 pages
File Size : 14,67 MB
Release : 2015-02-24
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 1612193757

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From the author of the international bestseller Debt: The First 5,000 Years comes a revelatory account of the way bureaucracy rules our lives Where does the desire for endless rules, regulations, and bureaucracy come from? How did we come to spend so much of our time filling out forms? And is it really a cipher for state violence? To answer these questions, the anthropologist David Graeber—one of our most important and provocative thinkers—traces the peculiar and unexpected ways we relate to bureaucracy today, and reveals how it shapes our lives in ways we may not even notice…though he also suggests that there may be something perversely appealing—even romantic—about bureaucracy. Leaping from the ascendance of right-wing economics to the hidden meanings behind Sherlock Holmes and Batman, The Utopia of Rules is at once a powerful work of social theory in the tradition of Foucault and Marx, and an entertaining reckoning with popular culture that calls to mind Slavoj Zizek at his most accessible. An essential book for our times, The Utopia of Rules is sure to start a million conversations about the institutions that rule over us—and the better, freer world we should, perhaps, begin to imagine for ourselves.