The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity

Byron takes us on a journey through the history of human technological and societal development, and asks a set of philosophical questions that help frame how to think about the age we're in now, centered on the concept of developing machines that think. Without trying to guide the reader to a particular conclusion, Byron asks you to contend with basic questions - such as what YOU are, fundamentally, and how that shapes your thinking about the age we're in.If you're an avid reader of futurist thinking or speculative fiction, you'll find a lot of familiar concepts here, but framed within the arc of history and with a focus on the implications for the human condition. If you're not, Byron helps guide you into the kind of thinking required to really evaluate the implications of AI. I'd recommend The Fourth Age to anyone interested in the future of humanity, it's deep enough to provoke new thoughts in the experienced thinker in this space, and approachable enough to be your first introduction.And at the risk of a minor spoiler - Byron concludes with a prediction for what comes after this age - and it's a prediction that is centered on a well-reasoned, but fundamentally very optimistic outlook on humanity - what we might look like with our potential fully realized on the other side of this Fourth Age. Whether or not you agree with his prediction - you'll definitely want to.

The author does a poor job from both journalism and science perspectives. In fact, the second half of the book seems to be a bunch of filler, concerning other topics about the future and how 'great' our civilization has been and will be, rather than keeping to topic. Fine, so the author is an optimist. An optimist paying close attention to page count rather than the demands of the topic. The first half of the book is hardly better. Instead of an analysis, the author asks dozens (maybe hundreds) of rhetorical questions, and concludes that your answers to the basic ones establish what you expect / believe will happen with AI and robotics. These are questions concerning whether you believe the soul or consciousness are unique to humans or can accept that mathematical calculations are all that is fundamentally involved. However, the book becomes a real let down when it regurgitates these answers to tell you what you think. Doh. Ask yourself if you want to buy a book that tells you more about yourself than the topic. The book has essentially no references, which reflects the fact that it is just a long essay. A cop out. And a waste of time.

This is the best book in AI, robots, and their implications for the future that I have read in at least a decade, and certainly the most relevant for where we stand as a society today. The author's prose is exceptionally readable and creative. It incorporates a summary of ideas already in circulation (and thus is appropriate for someone without a background in AI), and also introduces original ideas that I have not seen anywhere else. I highly recommend this book.

hard to finish and so full of false starts and dead-ends ... Reese writes an obviously well-researched book to show what's happening and what might happen and what's probably not going to happen in the field of AI … great background and overview on the subject but he does seem to fall short with some of his writing.for starters, he tends to drift around the topic he's discussing at any point and fill us up with so much background and minutiae, I had to go back to rediscover the train of thought … the other (and more off-putting) tendency he has is to be so optimistic about the potential of mankind to rise to the challenge of automated jobs that it borders on being saccharine.personally, I could have done with a lot less of the cheer-leading and more of the in depth delivery of information. he's a very competent writer and is very engaging, I would really recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the field to get a good footing in it and then move on to some of the deeper writings, like Pedro Domingos or Andrew Ng, to see the real nitty gritty without the tassles and team cheers … just my 2¢ …

It's nice to find a book on AI that straddles the line between being enjoyable and easy to follow without sacrificing any of the nuance and depth of this challenging topic. While we can probably agree that the exact future of AI has a lot of unknowns, and hence potential dangers, it doesn't change the fact that we can choose to view the possibilities through an optimistic lens, as Reese does here.Throughout the book, Reese takes apart the ominous headlines we so often hear in the news and provides more clarity around the topic. For example, the notion that '47% of jobs are at risk of being automated' is shown to be effectively a mis-reading of the reports authors, who more accurately concluded that roughly 47% of common tasks could be automated, but those tasks are spread out among many occupations.I do think more time could have been spent in the earlier chapters outlining the first three ages, and what clearly separates them, but the point stands that we have had very few technological shifts that have the capacity to dramatically shift the course of human history and development.This is a great book for looking back on where we've been and equipping the reader with the information necessary to form their own ideas about where we might be going next.

I was especially impressed with Byron Reese's analytical comparison of the human brain to current and projected AI computers. He really does a very thoughtful presentation of the differences between human traits of caring, sensitivity, love and planning for the best possible future world for humanity. IMHO, too many AI books paint an "end of humanity" perspective as Artificial General Intelligence takes over the World.As a footnote, a friend and I just finished teaching a course on AI for our local Osher Lifelong Learning organization.

A very interesting exploration of the modern day realties around robotics and it's potential to change humanity as we know it. The book challenges you to think about your stance and contemplate the impact of things like transhumanism, robots replacing human labour power and the ability of robots/computers to compete with the human brain/mind.

Very thought provoking.

In the fourth age Byron makes an attempt to give a look into our future. Unfortunately the attempt falls on it's face almost immediately. Borrowing from the structure of books from better authors he attempts to classify human history into multiple ages of which we are in the fourth. In this attempt his lack of objectivity becomes glaringly obvious as he makes statements of fact in heavily disputed areas. He fails to even mention that any dispute exists. This continues as he presents Kurzweil's idea that all technology follows a specific exponential growth path as fact. Not only is this idea not supported by the scientific community, he fails to even mention the possibility that it could be wrong. Furthermore in his look at the future of AI he descends into pseudo science as he seriously discusses the implication of the lack of a soul.In summary avoid.

It is a beautiful book. I am a computer science student but the book is readable even for people outside the field.The author encompasses various topics and represent the various outcome of them.Other people describe the book as too optimistic, but I do not think that is evil to be a little bit visionaries towards the future of life.