Life 3.0: Being human in the age of Artificial Intelligence
by Max Tegmark (2017) This book, in being huge in scope and purpose and in the beautifully constructed nature of the arguments, is reminiscent of a book written by another physicist David Deutsch. Whilst tackling fundamental theories of the universe, neither author can let go of an argument without tying up all the related explanations into a near perfectly constructed crystal ball, so that even when, as frequently happens, many questions remain unanswered, you feel you know precisely the measure of where humanity is at with the frayed ends. The book is by turns, vertiginously terrifying, pragmatic and finally almost consoling. One of the most chilling moments stems from Max's argument about the possibility of intelligent life in the observable universe. His is not a conventional take, but it is worth considering because it is by no means impossible, and if he is right, it places a huge burden upon mankind to get things right if the universe is to ...