Elon Musk named Our Final Invention one of 5 books everyone should read about the future A Huffington Post Definitive Tech Book of 2013 In as little as a decade, artificial intelligence could match and then surpass human intelligence. Corporations and government agencies around the world 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, James Barrat's Our Final Invention explores the perils of the heedless pursuit of advanced AI.

For about 20 years I've written and produced documentaries, one of the most rewarding ways of telling stories ever invented. It's a privilege to plunge into different cultures and eras and put together deeply human narratives that can be enjoyed by everyone. My clients include National Geographic, Discovery, PBS, and other broadcasters in the US and Europe. My long fascination with Artificial Intelligence came to a head in 2000, when I interviewed inventor Ray Kurzweil, roboticist Rodney Brooks, and sci-fi legend Arthur C. Clarke. Kurzweil and Brooks were casually optimistic about a future they considered inevitable - a time when we will share the planet with intelligent machines.

We discuss why James wrote this book 3 years ago now, how far away he really thinks we are from artificial human intelligence, the warning bells recently being sounded about artificial intelligence, and why he thinks there will not be another AI winter. Our guest today is James Barrat author of the book "Our final Invention" Artificial Intelligence and the end of the Human Era". It's good to be here. Kathleen Walch: [00:00:39] Great, I'd like to get started by having you introduce yourself to our listeners and to tell us a little bit about your book and also what additional things that you're doing in the field of AI and let's go from there. I got into artificial intelligence, or the study of artificial intelligence, and the critique of AI because I made a film about 17 years ago now about artificial intelligence. I interviewed Ray Kurzweil and Rodney Brooks and Arthur C. Clarke among others … and Ray Kurzweil of course who is now chief engineer at Google and the Google brain project.

As befits the topic, we start our list with a comprehensive introduction into AI technology: "Introduction to Artificial Intelligence." Written by Phillip C. Jackson, Jr., the book is one of the classics that's still read by experts in the field and non-specialists alike. This book provides a summary of the previous two decades of research into the science of computer reasoning, and where it could be heading. Published in 1985, some of the information might be outdated, but if nothing else, the book could serve as a valuable historical document.

Even when our debates seem petty, you can't say national politics doesn't deal with weighty matters, from jobs to inequality to affordable health care and more. But lately I've become obsessed with an issue so daunting it makes even the biggest "normal" questions of public life seem tiny. I'm talking about the risks posed by "runaway" artificial intelligence (AI). What happens when we share the planet with self-aware, self-improving machines that evolve beyond our ability to control or understand? Are we creating machines that are destined to destroy us?

Artificial Intelligence helps choose what books you buy, what movies you see, and even who you date. It's in your smart phone, your car, and it has the run of your house. It makes most of the trades on Wall Street, and controls our transportation, energy, and water infrastructure. Artificial Intelligence is for the 21st century what electricity was for the 20th and steam power for the 19th. The Hollywood cliché that artificial intelligence will take over the world could soon become scientific reality as AI matches then surpasses human intelligence.

How did you become interested in artificial intelligence (AI)? I am a documentary filmmaker, writer and speaker. I was making a film around 15 years ago about AI and got to speak to some of the major players in the field, including Ray Kurzweil, the Director of Engineering at Google who started the singularity industry, and Rodney Brookes, the premier roboticist of our time who founded iRobot (a company that created the Roomba vaccum cleaner and robots for military use) and then established a company called Rethink Robotics. Both Kurzweil and Brookes were optimistic about the time when we will share the planet with smarter-than-human machines – and I was too. I was, and still am, a gigantic proponent of AI, despite my book's title Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era.