Human Compatible: AI and the Problem of Control (Stuart Russell)

Longlisted for the Financial Times & McKinsey Business Book of the Year

Humans dream of super-intelligent machines. But what happens if we actually succeed?

Creating superior intelligence would be the biggest event in human history. Unfortunately, according to the world's pre-eminent AI expert, it could also be the last.

In this groundbreaking book, Stuart Russell sets out why he has come to consider his own discipline an existential threat to humanity, and how we can change course before it's too late. In brilliant and lucid prose, he explains how AI actually works and its enormous capacity to improve our lives - and why we must never lose control of machines more powerful than we are. Russell contends that we can avert the worst threats by reshaping the foundations of AI to guarantee that machines pursue our objectives, not theirs. Profound, urgent and visionary, Human Compatible is the one book everyone needs to read to understand a future that is coming sooner than we think.

Surely the most important book on AI this year. - Ian Sample, The Guardian, Book of the Day

A brilliantly clear and fascinating exposition of the history of computing thus far, and how very difficult true AI will be to build. - Steven Poole, The Spectator

Fascinating and significant. - James McConnachie, The Sunday Times

Worth reading Human Compatible by Stuart Russell (he's great!) about future AI risks and solutions. - Elon Musk, Twitter

A thought-provoking and highly readable account of the past, present and future of AI . . . Russell deploys a bracing intellectual rigour . . . but a laconic style and dry humour keep his book accessible to the lay reader. - The Financial Times

It's asking a lot of a book about the potential end of civilisation to be strewn with humour and wry asides, but this is what Russell manages . . . it's worth sticking with, for the sake of the species. - Best Science, Nature and Ideas Books of 2019, The Guardian

An excellent, nuanced history. - The Telegraph, Best New Science Books for Christmas

Russell is an assiduous and conscientious scholar ... [he] provides a wealth of information. This is one of those intellectual voyages where both the journey and the destination matter. - John Naughton, The Literary Review