Life 3.0

Note: I received this book as an Advanced Reading Copy on Netgalley.

This is the first book that I've read by Max Tegmark, and it really was a wonderful read. The book is engaging, and easy to read. I found that he had thoughtful ideas about artificial intelligence and the nature of how superintelligence can change the world. I loved his style and enjoyed how he explained how his mindset went from concerned to optimistic.

The topic itself is arguably one of the most important of our time, so I think it's very important to get right. This book is a great entry into the subject, and I heartily recommend it.

A book to read and reread, to discuss, to consider. The author invites his reader to develop an informed opinion about the role of AI in the future.

Well presented by an author who is not just concerned about the consciousness of artificial intelligence, but humanity's consciousness of how its world is changing.

Challenging, informative and hopeful, the book enables the reader to boldly go where he or she may never have gone before.

The future of life and how to get there
In Life 3.0 MIT professor Max Tegmark explores the future of Artificial Intelligence and how it will affect all aspects of Life. The scope is not limited to whether we will have robotic assistants (or masters) in the next 100 years; one of the chapters is entitled Aftermath: The Next 10,000 Years and is followed by one that talks about The Next Billion Years and Beyond. Obviously we cannot predict what science or society will be like in the far future; this is not a how-to manual. So how would one characterize the book? The Amazon product page rated it for readers interested in Business and Economics, Computers, and Medical topics, but I would put it more in the Philosophy category, albeit a philosophy shaped by Tegmark’s education as a physicist.
Tegmark begins, as any good scientist would, by defining his terms, terms like life, intelligence, and consciousness that need to be broadened if they are to include Artificial General Intelligence. He outlines the controversies about when strong artificial intelligence might come about and whether it will be good for humanity and devotes much of the book to the challenges and threats of artificial intelligence and what to do to make it beneficial.
Most people would probably agree that having goals is a key element of intelligence. In the chapter on goals, Tegmark raises issues like should we give AI goals, and how do we assure that the goals we want are retained as the AI gets smarter, maybe smarter than we are? Where did goals come from anyway? “How did goal-oriented behavior emerge from the physics of our early Universe, which consisted merely of a bunch of particles bouncing around?” Consciousness is another aspect we usually associate with intelligence. Tegmark acknowledges the common categorization of consciousness as the “hard problem” but wades in anyway. He defines consciousness as “subjective experience” and wonders “Does it feel like anything at all to be a self-driving car?”
Lest you begin to think of Tegmark as an ivory tower academic who is disassociated from the real world, let me assure you that Tegmark matches his energetic thinking with energetic action. He is one of the founders of the Future of Life Institute, a group focused on improving the future of life through “technological stewardship”. The group has garnered multi-million-dollar support from sponsors like Elon Musk for research into topics like AI safety to avoid both hacking and AI “escape” . They have published a list of Artificial Intelligence Principles that has been signed by over a thousand AI researchers and thinkers like Elon Musk, Steven Hawking, David Chalmers, Sam Harris, Donald Knuth, and Ray Kurzweil.
Tegmark’s writing is clear and even entertaining; he opens the book with a fun science fiction short story about a team that builds the first Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and refers to their experiences throughout the rest of the book. But this is not a book to read quickly. I found myself pausing often. I took side trips to bone up on interesting topics I was not too familiar with, like the Winograd Schema Challenge, a rival to the Turing Test to assess whether an AI can rival human intelligence. I also stopped to reflect on the questions Tegmark asked and his proposed answers. That is exactly what Tegmark wants the readers to do, and he even has a link to a part of his website where you can offer your opinions and exchange ideas with others. You probably will find that hard to resist!

Definitely enjoyed Max Tegmark's Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. This book has something for everyone or anyone interested in the future with AI. There were many references to other books and many scenarios about our future with AI.
The common theme I personally noticed in most scenarios (others may feel differently) is the desire that humans hope to look for a more powerful source or superintelligence to assist in eliminating human problems we all face today such as sickness, crime, poverty, war, unemployment, also space travel. Perhaps it makes more sense to designate an impartial AI to aid in the job humans have a hard time achieving, most importantly can this be done responsibly? Is it possible to inhabit the galaxy with this technology? If so when? Could the future be better or worse with AI? How long will it take to get there? Sooner than we can imagine or never?
Thank you to Knopf DoubleDay Publishing Group and Netgalley for a free copy of this book for review.