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  • Our Final Invention

  • Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era
  • By: James Barrat
  • Narrated by: Gary Dana
  • Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
  • 4.2 out of 5 stars (135 ratings)
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Our Final Invention cover art

Our Final Invention

By: James Barrat
Narrated by: Gary Dana
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Summary

A Huffington Post Definitive Tech Book of 2013

Artificial Intelligence helps choose what books you buy, what movies you see, and even who you date. It puts the "smart" in your smartphone and soon it will drive your car. It makes most of the trades on Wall Street, and controls vital energy, water, and transportation infrastructure. But Artificial Intelligence can also threaten our existence.

In as little as a decade, AI could match and then surpass human intelligence. Corporations and government agencies are pouring billions into achieving AI’s Holy Grail - human-level intelligence. Once AI has attained it, scientists argue, it will have survival drives much like our own. We may be forced to compete with a rival more cunning, more powerful, and more alien than we can imagine.

Through profiles of tech visionaries, industry watchdogs, and groundbreaking AI systems, Our Final Invention explores the perils of the heedless pursuit of advanced AI. Until now, human intelligence has had no rival. Can we coexist with beings whose intelligence dwarfs our own? And will they allow us to?

©2013 James Barrat (P)2014 Audible Inc.

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What listeners say about Our Final Invention

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

unfounded assumptions,biased unsupported opinions.

I got through a few chapters before giving up.no evidence to support any statements.pop "science" at best and far surpassed by similar books written by people actually knowledgeble of the subject matter.Author seems have done sparse if any actual research.While I disagree with the opinions in this book I came ready, with an open mind,but I can't take this seriously given the author hasn't backed any of it up with research or statistics the would actually hold up.Savevyour money.

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8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Terrible audiobook

What would have made Our Final Invention better?

There are no facts or figures in this book. It is, instead, an emotional rant with no substance. The narrator is possibly one of the worst I have heard on audible

Would you ever listen to anything by James Barrat again?

No

Would you be willing to try another one of Gary Dana’s performances?

No

You didn’t love this book--but did it have any redeeming qualities?

None,

Any additional comments?

Read Noah Harari's 'Homo Deus' instead

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

“ A nod is as good as a wink to a blind man?”

This one is like an astrophysicist appearing at the time the Cretaceous–Tertiary (K-T) boundary was being laid down... and explaining the possible consequences of an asteroid hitting the earth, to a dinosaur.

Something tells me for the vast majority of the people on the planet ditto...applies.

Now for people that are interested in the topic covered.... definitely an intro to the dark side of the ‘force’

Why “Genesis 2.0” may not be that bad of an alternative title...

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Many pessimistic assumptions

Many pessimistic assumptions about technology without almost any proof or anything to back it up except quotes from "famous people in the field".

Raises some good concerns but provides no tangeable solutions.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Great book in a fast moving landscape.

Needs a new edition. Three or four years is a long time in artificial intelligence.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Very insightful and thought provoking

Love the book and the approach taken by the Author to explain the issues and challenges we are likely to face. Some of the content is a little dated but that's to be expected of a book like this.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Brilliant

Made a technical subject easy to follow and very interesting to listen too. Covered the history well and is balanced by making the reader aware of opinions that go against his opinion.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Great choice of narrator

Struggling to know if the narrator is human, or AI. Authors discusses this very concept in first few chapters. Listen for ‘The Turing Test’.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

It is as expected for the most part. just scarier.

as the name suggests, we know there's not much we can do once the AI Ginni is out of the bottle...
but learning about how it's being developed by finance, defence n terrorist organizations makes one feel a lot more scared than b4...
in any case there was little speculation. the book is mostly factual so it's a bit dissapointing because we read this stuff written by experts to see what their wildest imagination is so we get a better sense of it. could have explored more "possible scenarios" in wild speculation.
otherwise good summary of how we r doomed.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

makes you think

great book really opens your eyes to the future, while some bits are a little dated the principle is spot on

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