Reaktioner på Here Be Dragons

Följande är några av de tidiga reaktionerna på min nyutkomna bok Here Be Dragons: Science, Technology and the Future of Humanity. Ingen av recensenterna i kategorin Tidningar och tidskrifter är personer jag sedan tidigare känner till, medan däremot skribenterna i de båda andra kategorierna Bloggar och Övriga fora samtliga befinner sig någonstans på skalan mellan goda vänner och flyktigt bekanta, vilket såklart kan ha påverkat deras bedömningar.

Tidningar och tidskrifter

• New Scientists Jonathon Keats avrundar (som tidigare meddelats) sin positiva recension med att kalla boken "an essential provocation".

• Financial Times Stephen Cave framhåller att jag inte gör några tvärsäkra uttalanden om hur framtiden kommer att gestalta sig:
  Häggström is not trying to tell us that things will definitely work out one way or another. Rather, he is reminding us that the future is an uncharted land in which there might be monsters. We need these gloomy forecasts, just as we need glimpses of a solar-powered utopia. There are some predictions that we make in the hope that they will prove wrong, and others that we very much hope will come true. The better we envision them — whether through sober statistics or the all-action sci-fi of my comic-reading boyhood — the better chance we have of steering the ship of fate along the happier course.

• L'Express de Toronto meddelar (på franska) att min bok inte lämpar sig att läsas nattetid.

• Engineering and Technology Magazines recensent Dominic Lenton framhåller
  the crux of Häggström’s case that we’re forgetting how scientific progress has the potential both to cause humanity great harm and to bring it great benefit. “To completely ignore this aspect of science seems like negligence bordering on insanity,” he says.

  Some will dismiss his attitude as alarmism, but simply saying we need to know more before we can properly address these issues just puts off the problem for future generations to deal with.

  As Häggström concludes, not making a decision is in itself a decision.

Bloggar

• Björn Bengtsson fördjupar sig (som tidigare meddelats) på sin blogg Jag är här i det jag i boken döper till Bullerbyscenariot.

• Robin Hanson uttrycker, på sin blogg Overcoming Bias, ett (delvis berättigat) missnöje över hur jag framställer hans ekonomiska analyser av en framtida värld där personer kan kopieras lika billigt och enkelt som vi idag kopierar musikfiler.

• Devdatt Dubhashi skriver, på bloggen The Future of Intelligence, en utförlig recension där han visserligen har en del kritiska synpunkter på enskildheter, men ändå en positiv grundton, och följande får mig nästan att rodna:
  Many of us have known Olle Häggström as a world famous probabilist working in the arcane area of percolation theory, but the author of this book [...] seems to be somebody altogether different. Indeed, Olle has run a hyperactive blog for a number of years, engaging in a number of polemics (sometimes bad–tempered) on issues ranging from religion and rationality in the early years, to climate change and most recently, artificial intelligence (AI) and its consequences. This book could be seen as the culmination of this effort.

  Personally, I welcome this metamorphosis.

Övriga fora

• I en kundrecension på Amazon ger David Aldous boken fem stjärnor av fem möjliga, och kryddar i följande passage med det smickrande (men för mig tidigare obekanta) engelska ordet "erudite":
  The book under review [...] has the timely theme of risks to human civilization from technology, although it does not pretend to be a comprehensive survey. Instead it contains a detailed discussion of a few such risks, together with wide-ranging comments on the politics, ethics and philosophy of science underlying what actions human society might take. Though not presuming any specialized knowledge of science or technology, the writing style is not breezy “popular science”, but a kind of erudite blog, allowing a broader audience a glimpse of debates previously discussed in more specialist forums, outlining the views of other individuals and adding his own, in careful academic style with footnoted references and clarifications.

Recenserad i New Scientist

Min nya bok Here Be Dragons: Science, Technology and the Future of Humanity har fortfarande ett par veckor kvar fram till officiell utgivning, men den har redan hunnit bli recenserad i New Scientist. Och recensionen, författad av konstnären och mångsysslaren Jonathon Keats, kan bara berskivas som glödande! Hör här:

THE year is 2056, and scientists have just created the first computer with superhuman intelligence. Aware of the risks, the programmers trained it in ethics. The machine functions flawlessly.

Aiming to maximise happiness in the universe, and calculating that sentient beings are happy less than half the time, the computer exterminates all sentient life. The balance of happiness increases from negative to zero - only there’s nobody left to enjoy it.

Futurologists refer to this sort of misunderstanding as perverse instantiation, and Olle Häggström is concerned about it.

[...]

"Some of the advances that may lie ahead of us can actually make us worse off, a lot worse, and, in the extreme case, cause the extinction of the human race," he claims. Here Be Dragons is his attempt to chart potential dangers so that we approach the future more responsibly, much as medieval map-makers alerted explorers to perils with depictions of mythological beasts.

Although some of his scenarios are outlandish, Here Be Dragons deserves to be read by all scientists and engineers, and especially by ambitious postdocs considering cutting-edge research. His sense of caution is profound, heartfelt and free of Luddite polemic: it's a stimulating attempt to balance the pursuit of breakthroughs with old-fashioned humility.

[...]

There are no easy answers [...]. The only certainty is that concerns about the future require vigorous debate. To that end, Here Be Dragons is an essential provocation.

Läs hela recensionen här!