If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies, by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares (Little, Brown). This controversial best-selling manifesto argues that the creation of artificial superintelligence (or A.S.I.) would lead to human extinction. Beginning with a primer on how A.I. systems work, the book examines the often counterintuitive ways in which intelligent beings realize their goals. These behaviors, Yudkowsky and Soares write, suggest not only that we are incapable of controlling A.S.I. but that such a system would inevitably conclude that it should extinguish our species. The authors point to a slew of engineering projects gone wrong—from nuclear meltdowns to the adoption of leaded gasoline—to show how complex systems and profit-seeking can breed disaster. But here, unlike in those cases, “humanity only gets one shot.”
The Improbable Victoria Woodhull, by Eden Collinsworth (Doubleday). The subject of this sharply drawn biography was not just a noted suffragist but also the first woman to run for President in the U.S., the first woman to open a brokerage firm on Wall Street, and the first woman to testify before the House Judiciary Committee. Collinsworth’s propulsive narrative traces Woodhull’s path from performing as a child “clairvoyant” to serving as a spiritual adviser to Cornelius Vanderbilt and then as a newspaper publisher. Notoriety trailed Woodhull through her life, but, rather than sensationalizing her scandals, Collinsworth highlights Woodhull’s flair for reinvention, and her drive to set the terms by which she would be remembered.
Illustration by Ben Hickey
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