Overall, they have sparked a remarkable change. They’ve made the idea of AI as an existential risk mainstream; sensible, grown-up people are talking about it, not just fringe nerds on an email list. From my point of view, that’s a good thing. I don’t think AI is definitely going to destroy humanity. But nor do I think that it’s so unlikely we can ignore it. There is a small but non-negligible probability that, when we look back on this era in the future, we’ll think that Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nick Bostrom — and the SL4 email list, and LessWrong.com — have saved the world. If Paul Crowley is right and my children don’t die of old age, but in a good way — if they and humanity reach the stars, with the help of a friendly superintelligence — that might, just plausibly, be because of the Rationalists.
Apparently the author is a science writer (makes sense), and it’s his first book:
I’m a freelance science writer. Until January 2018 I was science writer for BuzzFeed UK; before that, I was a comment and features writer for the Telegraph, having joined in 2007. My first book, The Rationalists: AI and the geeks who want to save the world, for Weidenfeld & Nicolson, is due to be published spring 2019. Since leaving BuzzFeed, I’ve written for the Times, the i, the Telegraph, UnHerd, politics.co.uk, and elsewhere.
Someone wrote a book about us:
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/04/the-ai-does-not-hate-you.html
H/T https://twitter.com/XiXiDu/status/1122432162563788800
Apparently the author is a science writer (makes sense), and it’s his first book:
https://tomchivers.com/about/