If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies

The world’s most influential voices on AI risk explain why superintelligent AI is a global suicide bomb – and we must halt development immediately'The most important book of the decade' MAX TEGMARK, author of Life 3.0'Better than any book on the subject I've ever read. A loud trumpet call to humanity to awaken us as we sleepwalk into disaster' STEPHEN FRYAI is the greatest threat to our existence that we have ever faced. The scramble to create superhuman AI has put us on the path to extinction – but it’s not too late to change course.

Two pioneering researchers in the field, Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares, explain why artificial superintelligence would be a global suicide bomb and call for an immediate halt to its development. The technology may be complex, but the facts are simple: companies and countries are in a race to build machines that will be smarter than any person, and the world is devastatingly unprepared for what will come next. Could a machine superintelligence wipe out our entire species? Would it want to? Would it want anything at all? In this urgent book, Yudkowsky and Soares explore the theory and the evidence, present one possible extinction scenario and explain what it would take for humanity to survive.

The world is racing to build something truly new – and if anyone builds it, everyone dies. ‘The best no-nonsense, simple explanation of the AI risk problem I've ever read’ YISHAN WONG, former Reddit CEO‘Should you worry about superintelligent AI? The answer from one of the tech world’s most influential doomsayers, Eliezer Yudkowsky, is emphatically yes. The good news? We aren’t there yet, and there are still steps we can take to avert disaster’ Guardian*A GUARDIAN AND NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR*