Yeah, I think people usually ignore blurbs, but sometimes blurbs are helpful. I think strong blurbs are unusually likely to be helpful when your book has a title like If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All.
I second this. “If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies” triggers the “find out if this is insane crank horseshit” subroutine. And one of the quickest/strongest ways to negatively resolve that question is credible endorsements from well-known non-cranks.
Yep. And equally, the blurbs would be a lot less effective if the title were more timid and less stark.
Hearing that a wide range of respected figures endorse a book called If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All is a potential “holy shit” moment. If the same figures were endorsing a book with a vaguely inoffensive title like Smarter Than Us or The AI Crucible, it would spark a lot less interest (and concern).
Yeah, I think people usually ignore blurbs, but sometimes blurbs are helpful. I think strong blurbs are unusually likely to be helpful when your book has a title like If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All.
I second this. “If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies” triggers the “find out if this is insane crank horseshit” subroutine. And one of the quickest/strongest ways to negatively resolve that question is credible endorsements from well-known non-cranks.
Yep. And equally, the blurbs would be a lot less effective if the title were more timid and less stark.
Hearing that a wide range of respected figures endorse a book called If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All is a potential “holy shit” moment. If the same figures were endorsing a book with a vaguely inoffensive title like Smarter Than Us or The AI Crucible, it would spark a lot less interest (and concern).