Table of contents | Better without AI
Better without AI explores moderate apocalypses that could result from current and near-future AI technology. These are relatively overlooked risks: not extreme sci-fi extinction scenarios, nor the media’s obsession with “ChatGPT said something naughty” trivia. Rather: realistically likely disasters, up to the scale of our history’s worst wars and oppressions.
Better without AI suggests seven types of actions you, and all of us, can take to guard against such catastrophes—and to steer us toward a future we would like.
Better without AI is available as a paperback, on Kindle, or for free in full here on the web. You can start reading now, read the blurb first, or check out the table of contents.
The enormous transformational potential of artificial intelligence has long been dismissed because AI itself sounds like science fiction. That is no longer possible. Fluent new text generators, such as ChatGPT, have suddenly shown that powerful AI is here now. We may respond with excitement for opportunities, concern with risks, or both.
This book is about overlooked risks—not malevolent robots, but “moderate apocalypses,” which could result from recent and near- future technologies. AI systems we cannot understand are already making major social and cultural decisions for us. That may crush our ability to make sense of the world—and so our ability to act in it. Feeling dazed and lost, we may descend into pervasive helplessness. Or, we may revolt against the machines—and in so doing, we may destroy systems we depend on for survival.
