The Age of Em
{{Short description|2016 book by Robin Hanson}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=August 2024}}
{{Infobox book
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| name = The Age of Em: Work, Love and Life when Robots Rule the Earth
| image = File:The Age of Em.jpg
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| caption = First edition
| author = Robin Hanson
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| publisher = Oxford University Press
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| pub_date = 2016
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| pages = 528
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| isbn = 9780198754626
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The Age of Em: Work, Love and Life when Robots Rule the Earth is a 2016 nonfiction book by Robin Hanson.{{cite book |last=Hanson |first=Robin |author-link=Robin Hanson |date=2016 |title=The Age of Em |url=https://ageofem.com/ |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=528 |isbn=9780198754626}}
Summary
The book explores the implications of a future world in which researchers have not created artificial general intelligence but have learned to copy humans onto computers, creating "ems," or emulated people, who quickly come to outnumber the real ones.{{cite web |url=https://www.newyorker.com/books/joshua-rothman/what-are-the-odds-we-are-living-in-a-computer-simulation |title=What Are the Odds We Are Living in a Computer Simulation? – The New Yorker |newspaper=Newyorker.com |date= |author= |accessdate= June 11, 2016}}{{cite news|last1=Poole|first1=Steven|title=The Age of Em review – the horrific future when robots rule the Earth|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jun/15/the-age-of-em-work-love-and-life-when-robots-rule-the-earth-robin-hanson-review|accessdate=May 4, 2017|work=The Guardian|date=June 15, 2016}}{{cite journal|last1=Baum|first1=Seth|title=The Social Science of Computerized Brains – Review of The Age of Em: Work, Love, and Life When Robots Rule the Earth by Robin Hanson|journal=Futures|volume=90|pages=61–63|date=March 21, 2017|doi=10.1016/j.futures.2017.03.005}}
{{blockquote|There have been three human eras so far, based on foraging, farming, and industry. The next era is likely to arise from artificial intelligence in the form of brain emulations, sometime in the next century or so. This book paints a detailed picture of this new era.|The Age of Em}}
The book's main scenario proposes that in about a hundred years from now, human brains will be scanned at "fine enough spatial and chemical resolution," and combined with rough models of signal-processing functions of brain cells, "to create a cell-by-cell dynamically executable model of the full brain in artificial hardware, a model whose signal input-output behavior is usefully close to that of the original brain."{{cite news|title=Is This Economist Too Far Ahead of His Time?|url=https://www.chronicle.com/article/Is-This-Economist-Too-Far/238050|accessdate=November 25, 2017|work=The Chronicle of Higher Education|date=October 16, 2016}}
Reception
Seth Baum reviewed the book in Futures. He commended the book for bringing a social science perspective, for the detail it gives, and for providing a starting point for further study. He also criticized some of the book's arguments and stated that different authors would reach different conclusions about the same topic.{{cite journal |last1=Baum |first1=Seth D. |title=The Social Science of Computerized Brains – Review of The Age of Em: Work, Love, and Life When Robots Rule the Earth by Robin Hanson (Oxford University Press, 2016) |journal=Futures |date=June 2017 |volume=90 |pages=61–63 |doi=10.1016/j.futures.2017.03.005 |url=https://sethbaum.com/ac/2017_rev-Hanson.pdf}}
See also
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- http://ageofem.com/
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Category:2016 non-fiction books
Category:Oxford University Press books
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