DAILY TELEGRAPH AND THE TIMES BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2017 'This is the most important conversation of our time, and Tegmark's thought-provoking book will help you join it' Stephen Hawking'This is a rich and visionary book and everyone should read it' The Times We stand at the beginning of a new era. What was once science fiction is fast becoming reality, as AI transforms war, crime, justice, jobs and society-and, even, our very sense of what it means to be human. More than any other technology, AI has the potential to revolutionize our collective future - and there's nobody better situated to explore that future than Max Tegmark, an MIT professor and co-founder of the Future of Life Institute, whose work has helped mainstream research on how to keep AI beneficial. In this deeply researched and vitally important new book, Tegmark takes us to the heart of thinking about AI and the human condition, bringing us face to face with the essential questions of our time. How can we grow our prosperity through automation, without leaving people lacking income or purpose?

What do we mean by life? The question has been asked a million times before, but with the development of artificial intelligence (AI) and potent computers, it is getting harder and harder to answer. Swedish-American physicist, cosmologist, and machine learning researcher Max Tegmark tackles this massive question in his book Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. A professor at MIT and the president of the Future of Life Institute, Tegmark demonstrates that the question "How do we define life?" is actually wrong on its face since there is more than one type of life. He embarks on a journey to explain three stages of life that make up the universe: Life 1.0, Life 2.0, and Life 3.0.

Throughout the time that life has been present on Earth, it has evolved through 2 stages, writes Tegmark, and it will soon move to the third stage. The stages are shown below. Life 1.0: knowledge is gained through evolution, physical properties also evolve, e.g. Life 2.0: physical properties evolve, however knowledge can be instantly gained, e.g. Life 3.0: Both knowledge and physical properties can be changed without the need to evolve.

Ever since Garry Kasparov lost his second chess match against IBM's Deep Blue in 1997, the writing has been on the wall for humanity. Or so some like to think. Advances in artificial intelligence will lead – by some estimates, in only a few decades – to the development of superintelligent, sentient machines. Movies from The Terminator to The Matrix have portrayed this prospect as rather undesirable. But is this anything more than yet another sci-fi "Project Fear"?

"AlphaZero crushes chess!" scream the headlinesa as the AlphaZero algorithm developed by Google and DeepMind took just four hours of playing against itself (with no human help) to defeat the reigning World Computer Champion Stockfish by 28 wins to 0 in a 100-game match. Only four hours to recreate the chess knowledge of one and a half millennium of human creativity! This followed the announcement just weeks earlier that their program AlphaGoZero had, starting from scratch, with no human inputs at all, comprehensively beaten the previous version AlphaGo, which in turn had spectacularly beaten one of the world's top Go players, Lee Seedol, 4-1 in a match in Seoul, Korea, in March 2016. Interest in AI has reached fever pitch in the popular imagination--its opportunities and its threats. The time is ripe for books on AI and what it holds for our future such as Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence by Max Tegmark, Android Dreams by Toby Walsh, and Artificial Intelligence by Melanie Mitchell.6,8,9

I have not written the hereunder and these are the notes from the book. This blog does not contain any "spoilers" because its a non-fiction. You can absolutely read the blog and then decided it you want to read the book or not. If you read the book, then you can refer back here if you forget something. I have jotted this down because these are really interesting facts that I like to revise.

Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence is a book by Swedish-American cosmologist Max Tegmark from MIT. Life 3.0 discusses Artificial Intelligence and its impact on the future of life on Earth and beyond.

When you hear the word "cyborg," scenes from the 1980s films RoboCop or The Terminator might spring to mind. But the futuristic characters made famous in those films may no longer be mere science fiction. We are at the advent of an era where digital technology and artificial intelligence are moving more deeply into our human biological sphere. Humans are already able to control a robotic arm with their minds. Cyborgs--humans whose skills and abilities exceed those of others because of electrical or mechanical elements built into the body--are already among us.

"Anyone who wants to discuss how artificial intelligence is shaping the world should read this book. Tegmark, a physicist by training, takes a scientific approach. He doesn't spend a lot of time saying we should do this or that, and as a result, Life 3.0 offers a terrific baseline of knowledge on the subject." Tegmark successfully gives clarity to the many faces of AI, creating a highly readable book that complements The Second Machine Age's economic perspective on the near-term implications of recent accomplishments in AI and the more detailed analysis of how we might get from where we are today to AGI and even the superhuman AI in Superintelligence. . . . At one point, Tegmark quotes Emerson: 'Life is a journey, not a destination.'

Artificial intelligence is becoming the fastest disruptor and generator of wealth in history. It will have a major impact on everything. Over the next decade, more than half of the jobs today will disappear and be replaced by AI and the next generation of robotics. AI has the potential to cure diseases, enable smarter cities, tackle many of our environmental challenges, and potentially redefine poverty. There are still many questions to ask about AI and what can go wrong.