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More Everything Forever

AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley's Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity

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More Everything Forever

Von: Adam Becker
Gesprochen von: Greg Tremblay
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Über diesen Titel

'Book of the Year' as chosen by The Conversation

'Disconcerting . . . a disturbing and important book' NEW SCIENTIST

'Smart and wonderfully readable' NEW YORK TIMES

The bad science and sinister ideas behind Silicon Valley's foolish obsession with immortality, AI paradise and limitless growth.

Tech billionaires have decided that they should determine our futures for us. According to Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Sam Altman and more, the only good future for humanity is one powered by technology: trillions of humans living in space, functionally immortal, served by superintelligent AIs.

In More Everything Forever, scientist and writer Adam Becker investigates these wildly implausible and often profoundly immoral visions of tomorrow to reveal why, in reality, there is no good evidence that they will, or should, come to pass. The giants of Silicon Valley claim that their ideas are based on science, but the truth is darker: they come from a jumbled mix of shallow futurism and racist pseudoscience. And behind these fanciful visions of space colonies and digital immortality is a cynical power grab, at the expense of essential work spent on solving real problems like the climate crisis.

More Everything Forever exposes the powerful myths that dominate Silicon Valley, challenging us to see how foolish, and dangerous, these visions of the future are.
Informatik International Sozialwissenschaften Zukunftsstudien

Kritikerstimmen

An important book as well as a good one. A really significant contribution to our discussion of the future . . . Becker's book is very entertaining as it exposes how the emperor has no clothes (Kim Stanley Robinson, author of THE MINISTRY FOR THE FUTURE)
With a wild and utterly engaging narrative, Becker gives us a refreshing reality check on the fantasies of billionaires, futurists and utilitarian philosophers who are plotting to "optimize" the future of humanity. A fascinating exposé (Melanie Mitchell, author of ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: A GUIDE FOR THINKING HUMANS)
I love this book. Becker has become our greatest prophet of doom (Errol Morris, documentary filmmaker and author of THE ASHTRAY)
Our world has fallen into the clutches of billionaires who mistake dystopian science-fiction stories for suggestions, rather than warnings. Speaking in my capacity as a dystopian science-fiction writer, I can confirm that this isn't merely very stupid, it's also very, very bad (Cory Doctorow, author of RED TEAM BLUES and LITTLE BROTHER)
Disconcerting . . . More Everything Forever is a disturbing and important book (New Scientist)
Smart and wonderfully readable . . . Amid [Becker's] sharp criticisms of the tech figures he writes about is a resolute call for compassion. He encourages us not to get hung up on galaxies far, far away but to pay more attention to our own fragile planet and the frail humans around us (New York Times)
Becker subjects Silicon Valley's ideology to some much-needed critical scrutiny, poking holes in - and a decent amount of fun at - the outlandish ideas that so many tech billionaires take as gospel. In so doing, he champions reality while also exposing the dangers of letting the tech billionaires push us toward a future that could never actually exist
With admirable clarity and patience, Becker dismantles the fantasies one by one: the AI apocalypse that obscures the real and immediate problems the algorithms are causing, concerning bias, misinformation and energy consumption; the absurd notion of "mind uploading" and the transcendental Singularity that will grant us immortality in a digital nirvana ("All of humanity, running on a computer, until the end of time"); the pipe dream of creating a civilization of billions on airless, frigid, radiation-strafed Mars . . . Writing More Everything Forever took guts (Philip Ball)
A much-needed reality check . . . A valuable meditation on the questionable stories we tell about progress, salvation, and ourselves
A compelling survey of the ideas espoused by a band of futurist thinkers who have championed - and profited from - a boundless faith in the power of artificial intelligence . . . Engaging with these tech-infused visions is necessary because they are starting to affect how society is governed
Alle Sterne
Am relevantesten
Adam Becker convincingly deconstructs many narratives that the tech elite in Silicon Valley tell themselves: artificial general intelligence (AGI) / artificial superintelligence (ASI), singularity, eternal life, space empires / humanity as a multi-planetary species, etc.
The basic pattern repeats itself here: “The end (that is, a tech utopia) justifies the means (human "resources", natural resources, endless energy consumption, you name it).”

This hubris reminds me of the saying, “The road to (technological) hell is paved with good (tech-optimistic) intentions", while, at the same time, democracy, especially in the US, is being undermined, social inequality is increasing, etc.

Personally, from a social science perspective, I have come to a similar conclusion, namely that “techies” are largely helpless when it comes to social complexity and do not understand the difference between dealing with complicated systems, e.g. machines, which can be controlled / simplified, and complex social systems such as families, organizations or societies which elude such simplification and control.

This fails on a large (societal) scale and also on a small scale (with “AI First,”) when AI is to be introduced into organizations without taking the complex socio-dynamics into account at all. However, as I observe every day as a business process analyst: emphasizing that it ultimately comes down to “people” is no less futile if one's understanding of social complexity itself is rudimentary.

Deconstruction of the tech elite's narratives

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Super Buch, dass die aktuelle Lage präzise beschreibt und doch am Ende hoffnungsvoll ist. Dank an den Autor.

Hoffnung

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