Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

As much as I would wish to present a review that would justly honor this book, I guess I’m doomed to fail. For this is the kind of work that is so overwhelmingly complex, and great in scope, that trying to reduce it to any meaningful narratives is a daunting task. In a way, I want to chicken my way out of it, by simply saying, or better still, by simply pointing to the book, as in meaning: “go and read it yourselves”.

Do I recommend it? Of course I do. This is the right book on a very controversial but unavoidable topic of Artificial Intelligence (AI, for short). For we all sense it is happening, or at least it will happen, and with it will come many life changing (or should I say game changing?) consequences that cannot, and should not, be ignored.

Before reading this, though I was a bit aware of some of the problems and concerns around the development of a powerful General Artificial Intelligence (AGI), truth is that I hadn’t truly grasped how problematic these technologies were — or how dangerous an endeavor this was. And this is where the book will stun those who, like me, only have a passing view on this subject.

Author Max Tegmark, the Swedish-American cosmologist, has a depth of knowledge both in physics and, well, obviously, cosmology that makes his thinking reach far beyond any other author on this subject (not even science-fiction writers with their inkling for imagining dystopian futures). Sometimes his thinking so far ahead, and I do mean really far, so deep into the future, that you will be awestruck for how deep are his concerns about the future of life and of our continuation as a species when faced with the many unavoidable obstacles we will inevitably have to face.

I have no expertise in these fields or on this topic to go about and break down whatever is discussed here here in any meaningful way. What I can do is to share my amazement and sense of wonder that I felt by reading this book. Thanks to it I’m now more aware of how complicated these issues are, what are the risks involved in developing these technologies, and even of how they can, and probably will, change the course of life and our future as a truly planetary species.

Having followed the many reasonings and evidences as Tegmark lays them out, even if I’m not as optimistic as he seems to be at the end of the book (you would have to read it to understand what I mean — for he has very compelling reasons to feel the way he does), I’m at least more comfortable with the directions things are taking. For AGI, if it happens, will probably be that Life 3.0 kind of paradigm shift, the aptly named singularity point, from beyond which what we can think or hope to understand is without doubt meaningless.

So, to wrap it up: if you have the smallest inkling in knowing more about AI, AGI, the problems surrounding this topic (and there are many!), and about the future of life on this planet and of our species, I wholeheartedly recommend you read this book. How many pages? 300 something? Don’t worry — for you won’t even notice. This is how interesting and exciting you will find this book.