Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Profound. It’s the only word I can come up with to describe this book. It should be required reading for everyone on the planet.If you’re a curious reader, it is an excellent primer on where the scientists are now. Tegmark covers the spectrum of physics, cosmology, and artificial intelligence with the clarity and enthusiasm I haven’t witnessed since we were all glued to our televisions in the 1980s watching Carl Sagan unwrap the mysteries of the cosmos. Max Tegmark, a professor at MIT, is brilliant, creative, and rational, giving him that rare ability to explain the complex and mind-boggling to the rest of us.The primary purpose of the book, in Tegmark’s words, is to invite all of us to participate in setting goals for the development of artificial intelligence and, indeed, the future of scientific inquiry. It is rare that someone of Tegmark’s standing in the scientific community invites us into the tent and as I read the book I felt an overwhelming sense of obligation to oblige the request. This book, I think, is that important.Philosopher Karl Popper popularized the adage, “If it’s not falsifiable, it’s not scientific.” It is a perspective widely accepted in the scientific community and in popular culture and it has driven a seemingly irreconcilable intellectual wedge between science and philosophy. It is a wedge that has damaged, and will ultimately constrain, both pursuits.Tegmark makes an impassioned and well argued rejection of the scientific dismissal of consciousness. It is, he argues, the elephant in the room of AI. It must be addressed and understood. And I think he’s right. (He also seems optimistic that science will one day figure it out. Of that I am not so confidant, but I am certainly open to trying.)As Tegmark clearly notes, there is no consensus in the AI community as to when, if ever, an intelligent machine capable of both learning and improving it’s own physical structure and performance, his definition of Life 3.0, will be created. Once it comes into existence, however, he makes a very convincing case that it will be too late to start thinking about aligning the machine’s goals with our own. The horse, by definition, will be out of the barn. And there is no reason to believe the outcome will be a good one if we don’t plan for it.If you enjoy incredible facts, Tegmark provides plenty of them. I know he certainly helped me to gain a better appreciation for the sheer magnitude of the universe and the mathematical splendor of time and space.I started this book with some skepticism. Because language itself is a human convention that we invented, I am naturally skeptical of any written or oral explanation of anything that claims to be final and complete. I think of knowledge in the way that post-Impressionist painter, George Seurat, thought of art. He established the Pointillist school, wherein the artist uses dots of pigment instead of brush strokes to create his or her artistic rendering of reality. When complete the image is obvious. Randomly remove half or more of the dots of pigment, however, and you’re forced to speculate.And that’s precisely where we are, I believe, in a lot of areas of science and general human understanding. It’s folly for anyone to proclaim that we have fully uncovered all of the laws of reality much less filled in the blanks. We have made progress in our understanding but our journey is far from over.I won’t suggest that Tegmark would agree with that, at least in degree. He is a scientist, to be sure. I do feel, however, that he is sincerely receptive to dialogue—even insistent on it—and that makes him the voice we need to move forward in our pursuit of understanding and the wonders, like AI, that knowledge will put at our doorstep.If not here, the future is coming. After reading this book it’s a lot closer than I realized. The conversation Tegmark requests is both timely and necessary.

Other reviewers commented on the writing style, but didn't want to go down to 4 stars, because the topic is so important. I agree the topic is important and the content of the book is great. But, I think it is important that someone buying the book knows what to expect, so I gave it 4 stars. At times the writing is tedious, and it would have been hard to get through the book, if the topic wasn't so interesting. I accept that the author is a brilliant scientist, but his writing style does not draw the reader in. So, buy the book, read it, think about it, but be prepared to work some on reading it.The content was more varied than I expected. I expected the history lesson on information technology. I expected the sections about advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and how they will be (are) smarter than us. And, I expected the sections on goals for AI development. I did not expect the sections on limits of technology, based on physical laws (as we currently know them), and how AI could eventually approach those limits. I expected a discussion of consciousness, but not a scientific approach to determine if a system is conscious or not. This book will give you a lot of important things to think about.Personally, I don't think the author will ever come up with a scientific method to determine if an AI system is conscious. Being conscious is the only thing we really know about ourselves (Descartes, et al.). But, it is something we can never know about someone else. We take people's word that they are conscious; which makes sense, since it is coincident with our own experience. But, we can't objectively know it is true. Will we take an AI system's word for it too? I think we will have to. But, I wish the author well. I hope I am wrong. I hope he succeeds in developing a method to tell if an AI system is conscious.As far as the guidelines for AI development, assembled by the FLI Team, I think they look great. But, the hardest part will be enforcement. Even if 90% of people accept the guidelines, the 10% who don't can pose a huge danger. As AI advances, it will likely be impossible for people to enforce AI rules. We will likely need to develop AI to police other AI.Anyway, read the book. Think about these things. If you don't lose a little sleep over some of these things, then you are probably not thinking deeply enough. But, ultimately I agree with the author's optimism. I think it will turn out good.

This book takes expansive, complicated concepts and presents them in easier to understand language. It provides information on all aspects that we are capable of digesting at this point in time. It leaves the reader better informed and optimistic about our future with AI.