10% Happier by Dan Harris is a meditation (ghehe) on meditation and how it has helped him. Although the book is fun to read/listen to, it provides little information per page/chapter. Recommended if you’re into biographies of this kind and fun description, but read a long-form article if you want to learn why meditation is all the rage.
Human Compatible by Stuart Russell is a great intro to where we are now with AI. It also lays out some of the problems and ways to tackle them.
I liked the book as a lay-person overview of where we are with AI. Stuart Russell does a great job of not looking too far ahead and also foreseeing some problems that we already have. There was no clear distinction between AI today and AGI, and that divide might be too technical/doubtful, but I (and Russell too) think the systems of today won’t get us to AGI.
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See this good video om 10 reasons to ignore AI safety (and their rebuttals)
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Update 17 March 2020: I’ve checked out this review on Slate Star Codex
“Russell goes over all the recent debates in AI – Facebook, algorithmic bias, self-driving cars. Then he shows how these are caused by systems doing what we tell them to do (ie optimizing for one easily-described quantity) rather than what we really want them to do (capture the full range of human values). Then he talks about how future superintelligent systems will have the same problem.”
In a way this is an analogy to a 4 year old, they will do what you tell them to do, but here are the first signs that they will do this literally and not per se as you intended them to do it.
“(from the book) The problem comes from confusing two distinct things: reward signals and actual rewards. In the standard approach to reinforcement learning, these are one and the same. That seems to be a mistake. Instead, they should be treated separately…reward signals provide information about the accumulation of actual reward, which is the thing to be maximized. “
This part highlights some of the work that has already been done on solving the ‘fuck-now-the-world-is-a-paperclip-problem’.
The article also looks at how algorithms (current day AI) is doing things wrong, but concludes that in general there isn’t much to worry about. For example deep fakes have been around for some year, it isn’t being used widely (but yes, there are examples, but the same goes for forging a signature).
Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas R. Hofstadter is a tome of a book. As of writing this intro, I’m only at 1/7th of the way there.
In the intro, he writes that the book is about the question: how can life exists from inanimate matter (no life). Here on planet earth, it started quite quickly after the conditions were right. What makes it so.
TBD
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky is an interesting sci-fi book that takes the human race towards a new planet. Alas, the humans don’t really get to land and some other species gains consciousness over time.
I really enjoyed the book and can recommend it as a good sci-fi book without much technology/universe building.
The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli is a lucid description of what time is and how it flows. It is based mostly on our best (and consensus) understanding of physics but also interlaced with some conjecture and his own work.
One of the main ideas is that time is not set as one moment, it depends on where you are (and how quickly it goes by depends on how far away we are from mass, e.g. the earth).
See for more a review by The Guardian.
One thing I really liked was how lucid he wrote, like David Deutsch with The Beginning of Infinity.
The awesome short stories of Exhalation by Ted Chiang.
I forgot to add this somewhere in mid/beginning September. I will write a review some other time. Discussed twice on Very Bad Wizards Podcast.
The Great Mental Models: General Thinking Concepts by Shane Parrish (of Farnham Street blog fame) is a short (3,5 hours) read/listen that introduces some awesome and useful mental models. Here a very short summary I found:
Maps are not the territory – All models are wrong, but some are useful
1. Reality is the ultimate update
2. Consider the cartographer
3. Map can influence territory
Circle of competence
If you want to improve your odds of success in life and business then define the perimeter of your circle of competence, and operate inside. Over time, work to expand that circle but never fool yourself about where it stands today, and never be afraid to say “I don’t know.”
Inversion – Approach situation from the opposite end of the natural starting point
Occam’s razor – simpler solutions are more likely to be correct than complex ones. “When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras”
Hanlon’s razor – Don’t attribute to malice that which is explained by stupidity. It’s less likely for two things to be true than one
Hacking Darwin by Jamie Metzl is an interesting look at the future (that is already partly here) of us hacking our genes (lives and more). Metzl doesn’t shy away from controversial topics. The book ends with a recommendation to start a global conversation; I think it’s a very good suggestion.
One interesting topic is that of genetically engineering our kids. We don’t have a very distinct line to draw in the sand (although we might want to believe so) between bad/ill and good/improvement. In the end, I think we will have a framework of compromises, but still the rich and influential will be able to edit/change their babies. And before you think only of productivity and beauty, some might opt for very different skills/abilities.
May we live in interesting times.
The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide by James (Jim) Fadiman gives you an overview of what we know today about using psychedelics for therapy/self-care/self-exploration.
I liked that it gave a good overview and added to my knowledge base around the topic. It was less structured/logical than I expected, but that was ok.
It does feature some very useful links and I think it’s a good stepping-stone to learning more.
– Presents practices for safe and successful psychedelic voyages, including the benefits of having a guide and how to be a guide
– Reviews the value of psychedelics for healing and self-discovery as well as how LSD has facilitated scientific and technical problem-solving
– Reveals how ultra-low doses improve cognitive functioning, emotional balance, and physical stamina
This year 600,000 people in the U.S. alone will try LSD for the first time, joining the 23 million who have already experimented with this substance.
Called “America’s wisest and most respected authority on psychedelics and their use,” James Fadiman has been involved with psychedelic research since the 1960s. In this guide to the immediate and long-term effects of psychedelic use for spiritual (high dose), therapeutic (moderate dose), and problem-solving (low dose) purposes, Fadiman outlines best practices for safe, sacred entheogenic voyages learned through his more than 40 years of experience–from the benefits of having a sensitive guide during a session (and how to be one) to the importance of the setting and pre-session intention.
Fadiman reviews the newest as well as the neglected research into the psychotherapeutic value of visionary drug use for increased personal awareness and a host of serious medical conditions, including his recent study of the reasons for and results of psychedelic use among hundreds of students and professionals. He reveals new uses for LSD and other psychedelics, including extremely low doses for improved cognitive functioning and emotional balance. Cautioning that psychedelics are not for everyone, he dispels the myths and misperceptions about psychedelics circulating in textbooks and clinics as well as on the internet. Exploring the life-changing experiences of Ram Dass, Timothy Leary, Aldous Huxley, and Huston Smith as well as Francis Crick and Steve Jobs, Fadiman shows how psychedelics, used wisely, can lead not only to healing but also to scientific breakthroughs and spiritual epiphanies.