The Intelligence Explosion: When AI Beats Humans at Everything

Major technology companies have chained themselves and the public to rapidly self-improving artificial intelligence and machine learning systems, despite their flaws and faults, warns tech expert and documentary filmmaker Barrat (Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era). Opening his book with a plain-language primer on generative AI such as ChatGPT, he emphasizes that we know that it works but not precisely how. Therein lurk foreseeable risks of catastrophic harm. Barrat notes that the disorienting, speedy development and willy-nilly release of AI to the public due to competitive economic pressures have led to accidents, bad actors, and other safety problems that endanger people. From his conversations with and quotes from leading AI developers and deployers, he reports the imperative consensus that AI must be regulated, and the sooner the better. To manage the significant and speculative risks and far-reaching disruptions accompanying AI’s promised and delivered benefits requires accountability, protection of privacy, and transparency—the three pillars of AI ethics.