AI Reading List

Originally compiled for James Dobbins.

Non-fiction Books

Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter

Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence by Max Tegmark

Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies by Nick Bostrom

Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control by Stuart Russell

Fiction books

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein

Sci-fi classic. Deals with AI on the moon and its role in war. Every single person working on AI likely read this when they were growing up.

The Golden Age trilogy by John C Wright

If you want to read a radically different sci-fi vision of an AGI post-singularity world that remains full of human nature (with its beauty and ugliness)

Daemon series by Daniel Suarez

Teases out consequences of an AI-like tool gaining control of the world’s computer systems.

Essays

A Coder Considers the Waning Days of the Craft by James Somers

The Battle Over Books3 Could Change AI Forever by Kate Knibbs

ChatGPT is a Blurry JPEG of the Web by Ted Chiang

What is ChatGPT doing… and why does it work? by Stephen Wolfram

Catching up on the weird world of LLMs by Simon Willison