“The overwhelming majority of these technologies will be used for good. Although I have focused on their risks, it's important to keep in mind they will improve countless lives.” And yet…
“We don't yet know the implications of AI for fields such as agriculture, chemistry, surgery and finance - that's part of the problem - we don't know what failure modes are being introduced and how deep they could extend. There is no instruction manual on how to build the technologies of the coming wave safely.”
- Mustafa Suleyman
Our October winner = The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman.
Artificial Intelligence. Synthetic Biology. Quantum Computing. Everything is about to change. This is the only book you need to understand this new world.
From the ultimate AI insider, Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of DeepMind.
💡 'Fascinating, well-written, and important' Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens
💡 'Deeply rewarding and consistently astonishing' Stephen Fry
💡 'An excellent guide for navigating unprecedented times' Bill Gates
Let's go!
iHuman: Our 102nd book - The Coming Wave:
About the book:
Soon you will live surrounded by AIs. They will organise your life, operate your business, and run core government services. You will live in a world of DNA printers and quantum computers, engineered pathogens and autonomous weapons, robot assistants and abundant energy.
None of us are prepared.
As co-founder of the pioneering AI company DeepMind, part of Google, Mustafa Suleyman has been at the centre of this revolution. The coming decade, he argues, will be defined by this wave of powerful, fast-proliferating new technologies.
Why we chose it:
“You really could spend months getting distracted by all the hype and news around AI. Or you could just read this book. Insightful and thought provoking, AI certainly does present a 21st Century dilemma - it’s a great read.” - anon review
We asked AI to help run our October events
We asked chatGPT what we should do at our October events and here’s what it came up with:
“The Coming Wave provides a rich ground for various activities that allow participants to engage deeply with the themes of technological advancement, ethics, and future societies. Here are some activities that might align with your book club’s exploration of the book...”to be revealed.
We then asked chatGPT to come up with an image of a book club reading about AI. Two seconds later, this…
What we actually did… was gather in large numbers to explore - and play - with the ‘coming wave’ of artificial intelligence.
We quizzed ourselves on the new language of AI including terms like ‘machine learning’ and ‘containment.’
We took on AI chatbot challenges (who knew Jesus and Taylor Swift had so much to say to each other?) and even managed to build a business plan in 15 minutes.
..and we did a good old fashioned debate: AI good vs AI bad…but in our case it was mostly written by our new bot buddies. Turns out they’re not so good at defending their own future threat as concern outweighed hope (120 x Tequila & Tonics eased the pain though).
Perhaps inspired by RBC, Elon and Rishi followed our AI debate, concluding that none of us will have jobs in the future. So more time to read books then?
We also met the brilliant Literacy Pirates. Register here to get involved.
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