Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control

IN-PERSON: Let’s meet and talk about artificial intelligence and the problem of control based on Stuart Russell’s **[book](https://a.co/d/dwPhTMb)**. “AI is the dominant technology of the future. The world’s great powers are waking up to this fact, and the world’s largest corporations have known it for some time. We must plan for the possibility that machines will far exceed the human capacity for decision making in the real world. The purpose of the book is to explain why it might be the last event in human history and how to make sure that it is not.”

Everyone is welcome whether you have read the book or not.

You can:

* [read a sample from the current book](https://www.amazon.com/Human-Compatible-Artificial-Intelligence-Problem-ebook/dp/B07N5J5FTS/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=&asin=B07N5J5FTS&revisionId=f196d461&format=1&depth=1)
* [view past selections](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1obtqw5MLQU5LCB2O53-_r1cmwwigvPlY-o36UomzzgQ/edit#gid=784660170)
* [view pool of candidates](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1obtqw5MLQU5LCB2O53-_r1cmwwigvPlY-o36UomzzgQ/edit#gid=1700718540)
* [add your ideas to the pool of candidates](https://forms.gle/k9m9TsTSBFKEmjHy9)

At this meeting each person can nominate a book to be voted on whether it is from the pool of candidates or not.

We’ll be meeting at [La Madeleine](https://lamadeleine.com/locations/houston-town-country). There is ample parking in the nearby lot.

Come prepared to discuss the ideas in the book and have a good time.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

More about the current selection:

“The most important book I have read in quite some time” (Daniel Kahneman); “A must-read” (Max Tegmark); “The book we’ve all been waiting for” (Sam Harris)

A leading artificial intelligence researcher lays out a new approach to AI that will enable us to coexist successfully with increasingly intelligent machines.

In the popular imagination, superhuman artificial intelligence is an approaching tidal wave that threatens not just jobs and human relationships, but civilization itself. Conflict between humans and machines is seen as inevitable and its outcome all too predictable.

In this groundbreaking book, distinguished AI researcher Stuart Russell argues that this scenario can be avoided, but only if we rethink AI from the ground up. Russell begins by exploring the idea of intelligence in humans and in machines. He describes the near-term benefits we can expect, from intelligent personal assistants to vastly accelerated scientific research, and outlines the AI breakthroughs that still have to happen before we reach superhuman AI. He also spells out the ways humans are already finding to misuse AI, from lethal autonomous weapons to viral sabotage.

If the predicted breakthroughs occur and superhuman AI emerges, we will have created entities far more powerful than ourselves. How can we ensure they never, ever, have power over us? Russell suggests that we can rebuild AI on a new foundation, according to which machines are designed to be inherently uncertain about the human preferences they are required to satisfy. Such machines would be humble, altruistic, and committed to pursue our objectives, not theirs. This new foundation would allow us to create machines that are provably deferential and provably beneficial.