/lit/ - Literature

>>10963476
Sounds interesting OP, myself I haven't read too much on the subject (honestly don't know too many about it) but pic related was interesting if not a tad flawed. Of course if we're talking AI one cannot not mention Superintelligence by Bostrom

>>10963497
>Superintelligence by Bostrom
ugh, I'm not really a fan of any media that has A.I. wiping out the human race. I always find the reasoning to be so flawed. Maybe I'll give this book a chance to see if it changes my stance.

>>10963476
I'm glad I'll be dead by then

>>10963553
whys that

>>10963563
Because man was not made to live in comfort.

>>10963531
How so? AI has the capability to completely overtake humanity if not implemented correctly. Perhaps it's the cynic in me that sees the future to be bleak. But Bostrom argues a very good case, thought there is a glimmer of underlying hope.

>>10963476
Kurzweil's "The Age of Spiritual Machines" is kinda the foundation text, though by that virtue, it's more platitude than actual analysis. Livingston's "No More Work: Why Full Employment Is a Bad Idea" is kinda up that alley.

>>10963497
That's on my list to get to eventually as well.

>>10963587
>Kurzweil's "The Age of Spiritual Machines" is kinda the foundation text

>release date 1999
uh does it still hold up? thing about technology books is that they can out of date really fucking fast as per Moore's Law

best books on social media, companies collecting massive amounts of data on their userbase, and governmental spying?

>>10963497
why was it flawed? why was it interesting? why is Superintelligence by Bostrom worth reading?

If you want to learn something read Scott Aaronson's QC Since Democritus. It's basically an undergraduate complexity theory course in disguise, but if you put in a few weeks you'll train your bullshit detectors re. what algorithms can and cannot do in the likely future, barring major breakthroughs. Complexity theory is basically quantitative philosophy---given the philosophy-boner this board has I'm surprised that it isn't discussed more often on this board.

David Deutsch's Beginning of Infinity is also great, although it's not technically very deep. The book is primarily about explanations, what they're good for, and how intelligence is all about coming up with new/useful explanations for phenomenon; explanations that explain both past states and predict future states. I read it a few years ago, the details are a bit fuzzy now, but I remember enjoying Deutsch's optimism about the future.

>>10963598
It does hold up pretty well. In fact I think that's why I think Kurzweil chose to remain mostly conceptual rather than concrete, so it's still worth the read.

The book focuses on the philosophical ramifications of AI, the rights of intelligences, etc., rather than saying "this is what the future will look like."

>>10963670
uuuuh, I meant this one.

I think this could be relevant.

>>10963674
Yeah, Bookchin fits in a way similar to Kurzweil, in that he doesn't provide a program. Instead, Bookchin focuses more on the idea of "why," rather than "how," and thus the work doesn't date itself.

Bookchin essentially presages a lot of these, in that he focuses on why we should and can move to a post-scarcity means of living. In response, Kurzweil examines the ramifications of AI as a new potential underclass that could turn into its own exploited proletariat if we just treat it as a tool, rather than as a thinking, feeling entity.

>>10963674
since i finished the book in the OP, i've fallen in the love with the idea of a post-scarcity economy. the author of the OP book doesn't use that exact phrase, he uses "economy of abundance", but really the same thing.

i've always been supported of capitalism, but automation will (and is) definitely going to kill it for something even better.

>>10963693
I feel like you do not realize that the ones tasked with killing Capitalism aren't the robots, but you and the people around you. You should start understanding why it must be replaced before you can even consider anything more. The means of production cannot liberate itself.

>>10963693
It's a good goal, and it's true that a post-scarcity, communal society is the ultimate goal of humanity. After all, it's the only logical course of action when capitalism is an engine that pushes unceasingly to innovate in order to fuel itself.

However, that does lead us to a problem: capitalism's inherent instinct to concentrate access to means of production, and now those means are the same tools necessary to build that post-scarcity society.

Capitalism will ultimately be in direct conflict with that goal, and will employ every tool that the capitalist society can leverage to keep it from happening.

I mean, the capitalist concept is not going to just "wither away," as nice as that would be, when a better method of organizing a society comes into conflict. It's going to fight back to preserve itself.

>>10963601
Nothing really of that sort out just yet, unless you want to read some books about wikileaks. But if you like books about the internet and social media and what it is doing to us subconsciously read The Shallows by Nicholas Carr and The Attention Merchants.

>>10963672
This sounds really interesting, any idea where one can find it? Doesn't appear to come up in my cities library database

>>10963693
We already live in an economy of abundance

>>10963476
Read Ellul and don't waste time. The interesting bits from other authors, you will read about in Ellul's books anyways.

>>10965275
Here is a pdf link. Likely have to buy a physical copy off of Amazon.

https://monoskop.org/images/c/c0/DeLanda_Manuel_War_in_the_Age_of_Intelligent_Machines.pdf

>>10963568
This unironically really made me think.

>>10965353
Thank you anon

>>10963601
https://www.amazon.com/Surveillance-Valley-Military-History-Internet/dp/1610398025/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1520394575&sr=1-1&keywords=surveillance+valley

Have you read Weapons of Math Destruction? Makes a very compelling point against Big Data and "efficiency" algorithms, even though her point about the police software was a bit flimsy.