Notes: Books

Corpus has published the Russian edition of If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares. Both are well-known researchers in AI safety, AI alignment, and the risks of superintelligence.

In the book, the authors explain clearly and step by step why the title isn't hysteria, exaggeration, or clickbait. The point is simple and unpleasant: if anyone on the planet actually builds AGI or ASI using technology anywhere close to what we have now, humanity is screwed.

I hadn't read Soares before, but Yudkowsky has always had this rare combination of deep expertise and the ability to talk about it like a normal human being, without disappearing into galaxy-brain jargon every thirty seconds. So you don't need a specialist background: a lot of work has clearly gone into making the text understandable for people who don't happen to have a PhD in applied math.

Anyway, the book is great. I honestly can't remember the last time I tore through something like this in one sitting. It's available on Ozon, at Chitai-Gorod, and even in certain suspiciously nautical corners of the internet — which I condemn, obviously, but if your black-flag frigate is already parked outside your building, what can I do? :)

Perhaps you already know that Eliezer Yudkowsky's “Methods of Rationality” in Russian is going to be published as a standard book (thanks to “Evolution” and other information partners), but I still want to remind again.

The book is really good, I had written about it a couple of years ago. It teaches useful things in such an attractive way that it's really hard to stop reading. The whole text is in public access, but if you want a hard copy — you can make a request now.

Cambridge just sent me results of my FCE exam in June and — dramatic drum roll — I passed it! According to the statement of results, I made a bunch of mistakes in writing tasks but particularly took it out during a Speaking test. It's a pity that examiners don't give comments and reasons so it's hard to estimate the results properly; however, it's quite clear what to do next :) My English teacher said that Cambridge used to provide an overall score only earlier and it sounded like “take it any way you want, dear pretenders”.

Well, I guess I should begin my preparation for CAE in the next year.

Speaking about languages, I remembered Feynman with his famous “Surely You're Joking”. Among many things, he told that he learned to play on a frigideira when he lived in Brazil and had reached so high level of skill that he served as a model for local musicians.

My theory is that it's like a person who speaks French who comes to America. At first they're making all kinds of mistakes, and you can hardly understand them. Then they keep on practicing until they speak rather well, and you find there's a delightful twist to their way of speaking their accent is rather nice, and you love to listen to it.

― Richard Feynman, ”Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!”

As for me, there is a lot of efforts between “all kinds of mistakes” and “love to listen”, but it is such a good synopsis. Working on it!

Just finished reading “Harry Potter and Methods of Rationality” — the epic fanfic based on the you-know-whose universe. An author is a tough specialist in the field of artificial intelligence and interesting on his own, but his book is what I insistently recommend to read.

First of all, it is the magnificent rethinking of the original saga. Many aspects seem not less fascinating, I may say; moreover, the plot itself is certainly excellent — I read two-thirds of the story without switching Gene Wilder off :-) Nevertheless, the author was skillful enough to make all points meet and finish a storyline in such a pretty way that I had almost nothing to complain about.

In any case, this book is a well way to meet with a lot of scientific and just interesting things which were mentioned along the way. The author is smart and his book is a smart one too.