[PDF] The Fourth Age by Byron Reese

The Fourth Age Sensible Robots, Aware Computer systems, and the Way forward for Humanity by Byron Reese PDF Free Download

Author of The Fourth Age eBook

BYRON REESE is the CEO and writer of the know-how analysis firm Gigaom and the founding father of a number of high-tech firms. He has spent the higher a part of his life exploring the interaction of know-how with human historical past.

Reese has obtained or has patents pending in disciplines as various as crowdsourcing, content material creation, and psychographics. The web sites he has launched—which cowl the intersection of know-how, enterprise, science, and historical past—have collectively obtained greater than a billion guests.

He’s the creator of the acclaimed e book Infinite Progress: How the Web and Know-how Will Finish Ignorance, Illness, Poverty, Starvation, and Conflict. He lives in Austin, Texas.

The Fourth Age Contents

PART ONE: THE LONG, HARD ROAD TO TODAY

THE STORY OF PROMETHEUS

• The First Age: Language and Fireplace
• The Second Age: Agriculture and Cities
• The Third Age: Writing and Wheels
• The Fourth Age: Robots and AI
• Three Large Questions

PART TWO: NARROW AI AND ROBOTS

THE STORY OF JOHN HENRY

• Slender AI
• Robots
• Technical Challenges
• Will Robots Take All Our Jobs?
• Are There, Robotic-Proof Jobs?
• The Large Questions
• The Use of Robots in Conflict

PART THREE: ARTIFICIAL GENERAL INTELLIGENCE

THE STORY OF THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE

• The Human Mind
• AGI
• Ought to We Construct an AGI?

PART FOUR: COMPUTER CONSCIOUSNESS

THE STORY OF JOHN FRUM

• Sentience
• Free Will
• Consciousness
• Can Computer systems Change into Aware?
• Can Computer systems Be Implanted in Human Brains?
• Humanity, Redefined?

PART FIVE: THE ROAD FROM HERE

THE STORY OF JEAN-LUC PICARD

• The Invention of Progress
• Life within the Fourth Age
• Loss of life, The place Is Thy Sting?
• What Can Go Improper?
• The Fifth Age

Preface to The Fourth Age PDF

Robots. Jobs. Automation. Synthetic intelligence. Aware computer systems. Superintelligence. Abundance. A jobless future. “Ineffective” people. The finish of shortage. Inventive computer systems. Robotic overlords. Limitless wealth.

The finish of labor. A everlasting underclass. A few of these phrases and ideas in all probability present up in your newsfeed daily. Generally the narratives are constructive, filled with hope for the longer term. Different instances they’re fearful and dystopian.

And this dichotomy is puzzling. The specialists on these varied subjects, all clever and knowledgeable folks, make predictions concerning the future that isn’t just a bit totally different, however that’s dramatically totally different and diametrically opposed to one another.

So, why do Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking, and Invoice Gates concern synthetic intelligence (AI) and categorical concern that it could be a menace to humanity’s survival within the close to future?

And but, why do an equally illustrious group, together with Mark Zuckerberg, Andrew Ng, and Pedro Domingos, discover this viewpoint so farfetched as to be hardly even price a rebuttal?

Zuckerberg goes as far as to name individuals who peddle doomsday situations “fairly irresponsible,” whereas Andrew Ng, one of many best minds in AI alive in the present day, says that such considerations are like worrying about “overpopulation on Mars.”

After Elon Musk was quoted as saying “AI is a basic danger to the existence of human civilization,” Pedro Domingos, a number one AI researcher, and creator, tweeted, “One phrase: Sigh.” Every group’s members are as assured of their place as they’re scornful of the opposite aspect. With respect to robots and automation, the scenario is identical.

The specialists couldn’t be additional aside. Some say that every one jobs might be misplaced to automation, or on the very least that we’re about to enter a everlasting Nice Despair wherein one a part of the workforce might be unable to compete with robotic labor whereas the opposite half will stay lavish lives of loads with their high-tech futuristic jobs.

Others roll their eyes at these considerations and level to automation’s lengthy monitor report of elevating employees’ productiveness and wages, and speculate {that a} greater downside might be a scarcity of human laborers. Whereas fistfights are unusual between these teams, there may be condescending invective aplenty.

Lastly, when contemplating the query of whether or not computer systems will change into aware and due to this fact alive, the specialists disagree but once more. Some imagine that it’s an apparent indisputable fact that computer systems may be aware, and thus every other place is simply foolish superstition.

Others emphatically disagree, saying that computer systems and residing creatures are two very various things and that concept of a “residing machine” is a contradiction in phrases. To those that comply with all this debate, the online result’s confusion and frustration.

Many throw their palms up and give up to the cacophony of competing viewpoints and conclude that if the folks on the forefront of those applied sciences can’t agree on what is going to occur, then what hope do the remainder of us have?

They start to view the longer term with concern and trepidation, concluding that these overwhelming questions should be inherently unanswerable. Is there a path out of this? I feel so.

It begins once we understand that these specialists disagree not as a result of they know various things, however as a result of they imagine various things.

As an illustration, those that predict we’ll make aware computer systems haven’t come to that conclusion as a result of they know one thing about consciousness that others don’t, however as a result of they imagine one thing very fundamental: that people are basically machines.

If people are machines, it stands to motive that we will finally construct a mechanical human. Alternatively, those that assume that machines won’t ever obtain consciousness usually maintain that view as a result of they aren’t persuaded that people are purely mechanical beings.

So that’s what this e book is about: deconstructing the core beliefs that undergird the varied views on robots, jobs, AI, and consciousness.

My aim is to be your information by way of these thorny points, dissecting all of the assumptions that type the opinions that these specialists so passionately and confidently avow. This e book is by no means about my very own ideas regarding these points.

Whereas I make no deliberate effort to cover my beliefs, they’re of little significance to the way you, the reader, work your means by way of this e book.

My aim is so that you can end this e book with an intensive understanding of the place your beliefs lead you to those questions.

Then once you hear some Silicon Valley titan or distinguished professor or Nobel laureate make a assured declare about robots or jobs or AI, you’ll immediately perceive the beliefs that underlie their statements. The place does a journey like this start?

By necessity, far prior to now, way back to the invention of language. The questions we’ll grapple inside this e book aren’t about transistors and neurons and algorithms and such. They are concerning the nature of actuality, humanity, and thoughts.

The confusion occurs once we start with “What jobs will robots take from people?” as an alternative of “What are people?” Till we reply that second query, we will’t meaningfully handle the primary.

So I invite you to hitch me on a brisk stroll by way of 100,000 years of human historical past, discussing huge questions alongside the best way, and exploring the longer term to return. This e book is a journey. Thank you for taking it with me.

The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity PDF

Author(s): Byron Reese

Publisher: Atria Books

Year: 2018

ISBN: 9781501158582

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