The Best Books on Artificial Intelligence

I've read a couple of your books now, and what I want to know is this: Do you really think that artificial intelligence is a threat to the human race and could lead to our extinction? Yes, I do, but it also has the potential for enormous benefit. I do think it's probably going to be either very, very good for us or very, very bad. It's a bit like a strange attractor in chaos theory, the outcomes in the middle seem less likely. I'm reasonably hopeful because what will determine whether it's very good or very bad is largely us. We have time, certainly before artificial general intelligence (AGI) arrives. AGI is an artificial intelligence (AI) that has human-level cognitive ability, so can outperform us--or at least equal us--in every area of cognitive ability that we have. It also has volition and may be conscious, although that's not necessary. We have time before that arrives: We have time to make sure it's safe. At the same time as having scary potential, AI also brings the possibility of immortality and living forever by uploading your brain. Is that something you think will happen at some point? I certainly hope it will. Things like immortality, the complete end of poverty, the abolition of suffering, are all part of the very, very good outcome, if we get it right. If you have a superintelligence that is many, many times smarter than the smartest human, it could solve many of our problems. Problems like ageing and how to upload a mind into a computer, do seem, in principle, solvable. So yes, I do think they are realistic.