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Review of Life 3.0: Being human in the age of Artificial Intelligence by Max Tegmark
Penguin Books, London, 2018 by Lucien Tuinstra Author Max Tegmark (born Shapiro) is a Swedish-American physicist and cosmologist, a professor at MIT, and co-founder of the Future of Life Institute (FLI), a ‘beneficial AI movement’ (more on this below). In this, his second book, he discusses a wide range of scientific topics, including information storage systems (memory), learning, intelligence, and consciousness. As a believer in evolution and big bang cosmogony, who is actually best known for his cosmological theories, some of his statements will not resonate with all readers. Nonetheless, his historical views don’t really affect what is going on at present and what may (or may not) happen in the future with Artificial Intelligence (AI). Actually, arguments from design are rife throughout the book. Books on AI-related topics (e.g. transhumanism) abound but Life 3.0 gives an overview of what the future may hold, to laymen and experts alike. Tegmark’s previous book is titled Our Mathematical Universe: My quest for the ultimate nature of reality. Perhaps the conclusion(s) of that work inspired the title of this book’s opening chapter: “Welcome to the most important conversation of our time” (p. …
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