Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

'This is the most important conversation of our time, and Tegmark's thought-provoking book will help you join it' Stephen Hawking

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER. DAILY TELEGRAPH AND THE TIMES BOOKS OF THE YEAR
SELECTED AS ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVOURITE BOOKS OF 2018

AI is the future - but what will that future look like? Will superhuman intelligence be our slave, or become our god?

Taking us to the heart of the latest thinking about AI, Max Tegmark, the MIT professor whose work has helped mainstream research on how to keep AI beneficial, separates myths from reality, utopias from dystopias, to explore the next phase of our existence.

How can we grow our prosperity through automation, without leaving people lacking income or purpose? How can we ensure that future AI systems do what we want without crashing, malfunctioning or getting hacked? Should we fear an arms race in lethal autonomous weapons? Will AI help life flourish as never before, or will machines eventually outsmart us at all tasks, and even, perhaps, replace us altogether?

'This is a rich and visionary book and everyone should read it' The Times

Max Tegmark is an MIT professor who who loves thinking about life's big questions, and has authored 2 books and more than 200 technical papers on topics from cosmology to artificial intelligence. He is known as "Mad Max" for his unorthodox ideas and passion for adventure. He is also president of the Future of Life Institute, which aims to ensure that we develop not only technology, but also the wisdom required to use it beneficially.

All of us - not only scientists, industrialists and generals-should ask ourselves what can we do now to improve the chances of reaping the benefits of future AI and avoiding the risks. This is the most important conversation of our time, and Tegmark's thought-provoking book will help you join it -- Prof. Stephen Hawking

This is a rich and visionary book and everyone should read it. -- Oliver Moody ― Sunday Times

I was riveted by this book. The transformational consequences of AI may soon be upon us­-but will they be utopian or catastrophic? The jury is out, but this enlightening, lively and accessible book by a distinguished scientist helps us to assess the odds. -- Prof. Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal, cosmology pioneer, author of Our Final Hour

This is a compelling guide to the challenges and choices in our quest for a great future of life, intelligence and consciousness - on Earth and beyond. -- Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Motors

Being an eminent physicist and the leader of the Future of Life Institute has given Max Tegmark a unique vantage point from which to give the reader an inside scoop on the most important issue of our time, in a way that is approachable without being dumbed down. -- Jaan Tallinn, co-founder of Skype

Max seeks to facilitate a much wider conversation about what kind of future we, as a species, would want to create. Though the topics he covers - AI, cosmology, values, even the nature of conscious experience - can be fairly challenging, he presents them in an unintimidating manner that invites the reader to form her own opinions. -- Prof. Nick Bostrom, Founder of Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute, author of Superintelligence

The unprecedented power unleashed by artificial intelligence means the next decade could be humanity's best - or worst. Max has written the most insightful and just plain fun exploration of AI's implications that I've ever read. If you haven't been exposed to Max's joyful mind yet, you're in for a huge treat. -- Prof. Erik Brynjolfsson, Director of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy and co-author of "The Second Machine Age”

Max's new book is a deeply thoughtful guide to the most important conversation of our time, about how to create a benevolent future civilization as we merge our biological thinking with an even greater intelligence of our own creation. -- Ray Kurzweil, Inventor, Author and Futurist, author of The Singularity is Near and How to Create a Mind

This is an exhilarating book that will change the way we think about AI, intelligence, and the future of humanity. -- Bart Selman, Professor of Computer Science, Cornell University

Tegmark successfully gives clarity to the many faces of AI, creating a highly readable book [...] Enjoy the ride, and you will come out the other end with a greater appreciation of where people might take technology and themselves in the years ahead. ― Science

Stands out ... Tegmark explains brilliantly many concepts in fields from computing to cosmology, writes with intellectual modesty and subtlety, does the reader the important service of defining his terms clearly, and rightly pays homage to the creative minds of science-fiction writers who were, of course, addressing these kinds of questions more than half a century ago. It's often very funny, too. -- Steven Poole ― The Telegraph

Fascinating ... for sheer science fun, it's hard to beat -- Stuart Russell ― Nature

Lucid and engaging [...] Tegmark's explanation of how electronic circuitry - or a human brain - could produce something as evanescent and immaterial as thought is both elegant and enlightening. -- Frank Rose ― Wall Street Journal

It should be among the most important items on our political agenda. Unfortunately, AI has so far hardly registered on our political radar ... Max Tegmark's Life 3.0 tries to rectify the situation.