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Written by Zach Weinersmith on 2024-11-01 at 10:34

Anyone read Bostrom's new book? I thought "Superintelligence" was a bit out there, but it was a pretty straightforward book about philosophy of AI. "Deep Utopia" feels like a philosopher having a stroke. I don't know that I've ever read a more confusing and repetitive book.

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Descendants

Written by Lana Sinapayen on 2024-11-01 at 10:49

@ZachWeinersmith I got so frustrated at Superintelligence that I shoved it in the trash after a few dozen pages. I very rarely literally get rid of a book but this was one of those... can't say I've tried anything by him since.

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Written by Zach Weinersmith on 2024-11-01 at 10:53

@lana I mostly enjoyed it as inspiration for comics, since it had lots of thought experiments and such. Deep Utopia was like... written in the third person about himself lecturing, with dialogs that go nowhere, stories about animals... I dunno, it's weird.

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Written by Lana Sinapayen on 2024-11-01 at 11:11

@ZachWeinersmith Mmh. He's not even super old (I've noticed that older scientists who are also book writers tend to hurriedly shove everything they care about in their last book, which makes for bad science and poor writing). Strange indeed. Maybe he used chatgpt to write it? Only half joking here but people who believe chatgpt is the next generation of human tend to miss even huge flaws in its output.

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Written by Zach Weinersmith on 2024-11-01 at 22:30

@lana Yes it felt like a book by an emeritus professor!

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Written by r. clayton on 2024-11-02 at 02:36

@ZachWeinersmith @lana “Yes it felt like a book by an emeritus professor!”

I think that’s so: his Future of Humanity Institute got shut down at Oxford earlier this year.

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Written by Jeff McBride on 2024-11-01 at 11:38

@ZachWeinersmith I am reading this now! It IS weird. Some of the little dialog asides with the named characters are so strange and pointless, I wonder if I am missing an inside joke? It gives Gödel, Escher, Bach vibes with the playful fiction, but I havent decided if I like it or not. Either way, that hasnt really gotten in the way for me, and I have found parts interesting. I got a good laugh at the congestion pricing bit with "homo sapiens sapiens".

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Written by Zach Weinersmith on 2024-11-01 at 22:31

@mcbridejc It feels like he had a zany idea for a book that sounded interesting in theory and just... it came out as weird and dull?

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Written by Charlie Stross on 2024-11-01 at 11:57

@ZachWeinersmith I haven't seen it yet, but I hear you ands raise you 1986's "The Physics of Immortality" by Frank Tipler...

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Written by Larry on 2024-11-01 at 12:04

@cstross @ZachWeinersmith

The Eternal Golden Braid deserves an Honourable Mention.

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Written by John Gordon on 2024-11-01 at 12:41

@quoidian @cstross @ZachWeinersmith I ready the Braid thing very closely! I was in Thailand then. I’ve often thought of it.

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Written by Winchell Chung ⚛🚀 on 2024-11-01 at 13:34

@quoidian @cstross @ZachWeinersmith

Perhaps also A New Kind of Science by Stephen Wolfram.

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Written by MaxTheFox on 2024-11-02 at 09:55

@nyrath @quoidian @cstross @ZachWeinersmith Wolfram is unfortunately a bit of a crackpot, and did some skeevy things with patents etc.

His book is... interesting but not well regarded in cellular-automata-study circles.

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Written by ikesau on 2024-11-01 at 13:47

@ZachWeinersmith I haven't read the book, but Scott Alexander gave it a review that was quite thoughtful (and generous)

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Written by MaxTheFox on 2024-11-02 at 09:57

@ZachWeinersmith @nyrath To think that of all of "that" kind of transhumanist (the techbros, as opposed to the other kinds. We really need different group names for 'em) he is the sanest one. Or was, at least.

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