Documentary Filmmaker and Author of ‘Our Final Invention’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. Some of my favorite films, and series I’ve contributed to, appear on the next page.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 considerDocumentary Filmmaker and Author of ‘Our Final Invention’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. Some of my favorite films, and series I’ve contributed to, appear on the next page.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. “It won’t be some alien invasion of robots coming over the hill,” Kurzweil told me, “because they’ll be made by us.” In his compound in Sri Lanka, Clarke wasn’t so sure. “I think it’s just a matter of time before machines dominate mankind,” he said. “Intelligence will win out.”Intelligence, not charm or beauty, is the special power that enables humans to dominate Earth. That dominance wasn’t won by a huge intellectual margin either, but by a relatively small one. It doesn’t take much to take it all. Now, propelled by a powerful economic wind, scientists are developing intelligent machines. Each year intelligence grows closer to shuffling off its biological coil and taking on an infinitely faster and more powerful synthetic one. But before machine intelligence matches our own, we have a chance. We must develop a science for understanding and coexisting with smart, even superintelligent machines. If we fail, we’ll be stuck in an unwinnable dilemma. We’ll have to rely on the kindness of machines to survive. Will machines naturally love us and protect us? Should we bet our existence on it?Our Final Invention is about what can go wrong with the development and application of advanced AI. It’s about AI’s catastrophic downside, one you’ll never hear about from Google, Apple, IBM, and DARPA. I think it’s the most important conversation of our time, and I hope you’ll join in. 

James

Antonio García Martínez is an American New York Times Best Selling author and tech entrepreneur. He is a former product manager for Facebook, the CEO-founder of AdGrok and a former quantitative analyst for Goldman Sachs.

Antonio García Martínez

Nir Eyal is an Israeli-born American author, lecturer and investor known for his bestselling book, Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products.

Reid Garrett Hoffman CBE is an American internet entrepreneur, venture capitalist and author. Hoffman was the co-founder and executive chairman of LinkedIn, a business-oriented social network used primarily for professional networking. He is currently a partner at the venture capital firm Greylock Partners.

Reid

Samuel Benjamin Harris is an American author, neuroscientist, philosopher and podcast host. His work touches on a wide range of topics, including rationality, religion, ethics, free will, neuroscience, meditation, philosophy of mind, politics, terrorism, and artificial intelligence. Since September 2013, Harris has hosted the Making Sense podcast (originally titled Waking Up), in which he interviews guests, responds to critics, and discusses his views. In September 2018 Harris released a meditation app, Waking Up with Sam Harris.

Jake Knapp is the inventor of the Design Sprint and a New York Times bestselling author. He’s written two books, Sprint and Make Time, and has coached teams at places like Slack, LEGO, IDEO, and NASA on design strategy and time management.

Jake

Paul Graham is an English-born American computer scientist, entrepreneur, venture capitalist, author, and essayist. He is best known for his work on Lisp, his former startup Viaweb, co-founding the influential startup accelerator and seed capital firm Y Combinator, his blog, and Hacker News.

Paul

"Think of what you wanted to do when you were a child, and try to make that happen."In 1996, I was facing the inevitability of a career change. My teaching appointment at a liberal arts college was running out, and the job market was dismal. One of my contacts gave me the advice above, and as corny as it sounds, it really did put things into perspective for me. When I was a child, the only thing I wanted to be was a writer. I wrote my first book, "The Littlest Inchwarm" (sic), at age five. In fourth grade, when each student had to write two reports during the year, I wrote 101 (making liberal use of the Encyclopedia Britannica). Yes, I caught the writing bug early.But how to make it happen? Well, fortunately, I found out about the Science C"Think of what you wanted to do when you were a child, and try to make that happen."In 1996, I was facing the inevitability of a career change. My teaching appointment at a liberal arts college was running out, and the job market was dismal. One of my contacts gave me the advice above, and as corny as it sounds, it really did put things into perspective for me. When I was a child, the only thing I wanted to be was a writer. I wrote my first book, "The Littlest Inchwarm" (sic), at age five. In fourth grade, when each student had to write two reports during the year, I wrote 101 (making liberal use of the Encyclopedia Britannica). Yes, I caught the writing bug early.But how to make it happen? Well, fortunately, I found out about the Science Communication Program at UC Santa Cruz, which provided me the training and, more importantly, the attitude adjustment necessary to make the leap from academia to journalism. After a year as a SciCommie in 1996-97, I was ready to hang out my shingle as a freelance writer, and that has been my career ever since.Most of my writing has been for popular science magazines (New Scientist, Science, Discover). Recently, I have started to do quite a bit of contract work (National Academy of Sciences, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics). And as you can see from this web page, I also write books.Because my academic specialty was math, I tend to write about topics that involve mathematics in some way. (But not always! My first book, The Big Splat, or How Our Moon Came to Be, has very little math in it.) I especially like to find what veteran Los Angeles Times journalist K.C. Cole calls "stealth math" -- mathematics hidden in ordinary life, or in other parts of science. I try to break down the barriers that block many people from understanding and appreciating mathematics. My latest book, The Universe in Zero Words, was definitely written with these goals in mind.I have a wealth of interests besides math and writing. I play chess and write a chess blog (dana blogs chess). I started hula dancing several years ago, a great way of learning about the Hawaiian culture. Also, my wife Kay and I volunteer at the local animal shelter and take foster care of kittens who are too young to adopt. One of them, a big and beautiful and gentle and hug-loving tuxedo cat named Max, stayed with us for keeps. Sometimes, as I watch deadlines slipping away, I think I should cut back on all these "extracurricular activities," but most of the time I think they help keep me sane. Also, going to the beach (one mile from where I live in Santa Cruz) and watching the waves has a similar effect.Please visit my home page, http://danamackenzie.com, for more information about me, or go to Max's channel on YouTube if you just want to watch cute kittie videos!

Dana

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.Since gaining a BSc in physics from the University of Bristol and a PhD in theoretical physics from the University of Manchester, Stephen Webb has worked in a variety of universities in the UK. He is a regular contributor to the Yearbook of Astronomy series and has published an undergraduate textbook on distance determination in astronomy and cosmology as well as several popular science books. His interest in the Fermi paradox combines lifelong interests in both science and science fiction.

Stephen

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Aa...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Aa...

Scott

Raymond Kurzweil is an inventor and futurist who has published books on health, artificial intelligence, transhumanism, and the technological singularity.
Spider-Man is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer-editor Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko, he first appeared in the anthology comic book Amazing Fantasy #15 (August 1962) in the Silver Age of Comic Books. He has since been featured in films, television shows, novels, video games, and plays. Spider-Man is the alias of Peter Parker, an orphan raised by his Aunt May and Uncle Ben in New York City after his parents Richard and Mary Parker died in a plane crash. Lee and Ditko had the character deal with the struggles of adolescence and financial issues and gave him many supporting characters, such as Flash Thompson, J. Jonah Jameson, and Harry Osborn; romantic interests Gwen Stacy, Mary Jane Watson, and the Black Cat; and foes such as Doctor Octopus, the Green Goblin, and Venom. In his origin story, Spider-Man gets superhuman spider-powers and abilities from a bite from a radioactive spider; these include clinging to surfaces and ceilings, superhuman strength, speed, and agility, and detecting danger with his precognition ability called "spider-sense." He also builds wrist-mounted "web-shooter" devices that shoot artificial spider-webs of his own design that were meant to be used for fighting his enemies and web-swinging across the city. After the personal tragedy of his late Uncle Ben, Peter began using his spider-powers to fight against crime as Spider-Man.
Commercial success
A few months after Spider-Man's introduction, publisher Goodman reviewed the sales figures for that issue and was shocked to find it was one of the nascent Marvel's highest-selling comics.[33]: 97  A solo ongoing series followed, beginning with The Amazing Spider-Man #1 (cover-dated March 1963). The title eventually became Marvel's top-selling series[8]: 211  with the character swiftly becoming a cultural icon; a 1965 Esquire poll of college campuses found that college students ranked Spider-Man and fellow Marvel hero the Hulk alongside Bob Dylan and Che Guevara as their favorite revolutionary icons. One interviewee selected Spider-Man because he was "beset by woes, money problems, and the question of existence. In short, he is one of us."[8]: 223  Following Ditko's departure after issue #38 (July 1966), John Romita Sr. replaced him as penciller and would draw the series for the next several years. In 1968, Romita would also draw the character's extra-length stories in the comics magazine The Spectacular Spider-Man, a proto-graphic novel designed to appeal to older readers. It only lasted for two issues, but it represented the first Spider-Man spin-off publication, aside from the original series' summer Annuals that began in 1964.[34]

Max Erik Tegmark is a Swedish-American physicist, cosmologist and machine learning researcher. He is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the scientific director of the Foundational Questions Institute.

James Clear is a personal development keynote speaker and New York Times bestselling author of Atomic Habits. His entertaining talks teach audiences about small habits, decision-making, and continuous improvement.

Adam M. Grant is an American psychologist and author who is currently a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania specializing in organizational psychology. He received academic tenure aged 28, making him the youngest tenured professor at the Wharton School.

Adam

Ryan Holiday is the bestselling author of Trust Me, I’m Lying; The Obstacle Is the Way; Ego Is the Enemy; Conspiracy and other books about marketing, culture, and the human condition. His work has been translated into over 30 languages and has appeared everywhere from the New York Times to Fast Company. His company, Brass Check, has advised companies such as Google, TASER, and Complex, as well as multiplatinum musicians and some of the biggest authors in the world. He lives in Austin, Texas.

Ryan

Chris Anderson is a British-American businessman who is the head of TED, a non-profit organization that provides idea-based talks and hosts an annual conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Chris

Toby

This important and eye-opening book argues that safeguarding humanitys future is the most pressing issue of our time.  If all goes according to plan, human history will only be beginning.  Our species has the potential to live for billions of years, long enough to eradicate sickness, poverty, and injustice, as well as flourish in ways that are currently unfathomable.  However, this bright future is in jeopardy.  With the introduction of nuclear weapons, humanity entered a new era in which we are confronted with existential catastrophes - ones from which we would never be able to recover.  From climate change to modified germs and artificial intelligence, the threats have only grown since then.  It will be too late if we do not act quickly to reach a safe location. The Precipice delves into the cutting-edge science underpinning the threats we face, based on more than a decade of research.  It places them in the context of humanitys larger story, demonstrating how averting these dangers is one of the most serious moral challenges of our day.  It also shows the road forward, pointing to the activities and tactics that can protect humanity.  Toby Ord, an Oxford philosopher dedicated to putting ideas into action, has advised the US National Intelligence Council, the UK Prime Ministers Office, and the World Bank on some of humanitys most pressing issues.  He delivers a sobering reappraisal of human history, the future we are failing to protect, and the steps we must take to guarantee that we are not the final generation in The Precipice. ‍‍‍‍

Tobi Lütke is a German-born Canadian billionaire entrepreneur, and the founder and CEO of Shopify, a company based in Ottawa, Canada. He has been part of the core team of the Ruby on Rails framework and has created open source libraries such as Active Merchant.

Tobi

Vitaly Dmitriyevich "Vitalik" Buterin is a Russian-Canadian programmer and writer who is best known as one of the co-founders of Ethereum. Buterin became involved with cryptocurrency early in its inception, co-founding Bitcoin Magazine in 2011.

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