• DOI:10.1007/s11023-015-9377-7
• Corpus ID: 18174037

Nick Bostrom: Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies

@article{Thorn2015NickBS,
  title={Nick Bostrom: Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies},
  author={Paul D. Thorn},
  journal={Minds and Machines},
  year={2015},
  volume={25},
  pages={285-289}
}

• Paul D. Thorn
• Published 1 August 2015
• Education
• Minds and Machines

Nick Bostrom’s book Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies is a systematic and scholarly study of the possible dangers issuing from the development of artificial intelligence. The book is relatively comprehensive, covering a multitude of topics relating to the safe development of superhuman artificial intelligence. If the arguments presented in Bostrom’s book are correct, then the book’s subject matter represents a very important field of study, inasmuch as (1) the creation of a superintelligent being represents a possible means to the extinction of mankind, and (2) there are actions that can be taken to reduce this risk. According to other arguments that Bostrom offers, the creation of a ‘friendly’ superintelligent being might, on the other hand, lead to the rapid development of many beneficial technologies, e.g., technologies that eliminate death by aging. Bostrom asserts that his book is written as if its target audience were earlier timeslices of himself, assuming that he wanted to quickly bring the past time-slices of Bostrom ‘up to speed’, regarding the present Bostrom’s thoughts concerning the topic of superintelligence. Past time-slices of Bostrom received a PhD in Philosophy at the London School of Economics, with studies prior to that in the areas of Physics, Mathematics, Mathematical Logic, Computational Neuroscience, and Artificial Intelligence. One will not need such an extensive background to catch up with the views of current time-slice Bostrom. In fact, I would say that the book is optimized for persons with training in philosophy, including some familiarity with decision theory. For persons with such a background, such as myself, the book is an interesting and relatively easy read. Computer scientists working in logic and