Reading Period: September 25 - Present
1. Reinforcement Learning (P), by Richard Sutton
Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/739791.Reinforcement_Learning
According to Goodreads, this is my 500th book. Wow. Also, over the last few months I finally made it through a series of technical ML books (Linear Algebra Done Right, Deep Learning, and Reinforcement Learning), of which I had been wanting to finish for years. For maybe a moment, I should probably reflect on the fact, and celebrate, that I have turned into quite the literature power user. In some sense it seems fitting to end the first 500 on this book, as now all of my reading goals to date are basically accomplished.
Five and a half years years ago, I wrote down a list of life goals: 100 mile ultramarathon, watch 1,000 movies, read 500 books, publish a book, get married, have kids. Now only the last two are outstanding, and as I am engaged, it seems those are not far off either. Reading has transformed me as an individual, and I consider it central to my identity and my success. Fiction has expanded my horizons and worldview, and while I've learned a bit from school and work, I've learned far more from the world of nonfiction. In some sense the CFA curriculum, where I was forced to read finance textbook after finance textbook, is a greater contributor to my current reading ability (I can literally just crush a book like Reinforcement Learning in a week). But regardless, this muscle is still extraordinary to me.
Now, onto the book. It's is fairly old (originally published in 1998), but Richard is a legend. There are likely two "buckets" of AI that are going to transform the world forever, deep learning and reinforcement learning. In my opinion, advancements in reinforcement learning are way more powerful, scary, and transformative. Even with modern neural nets, it took RLHF to spark broad usefulness. As we undertake the age of autonomous agents interacting with their environment, the sheer "bitter lesson" could soon be that humans can't compete. Overall, this was a great intro into the state of the RL world 27 years ago. It's worth the overview, although given all the advances since it's probably nearing the end of its comparative advantage. Still worth the read now, and maybe for the next couple years.
2. Artificial You (A), by Susan Schneider
Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44526011-artificial-you
Very good book. Susan is one of the most well-known figures in the realm of AI consciousness, and she has more prestige than nearly anyone in the field. I quoted her multiple times in my own book, and a lot of our arguments are the same. There was a lot of discussion of personhood in this, particularly the idea that if you "upload" yourself to a computer, there's certainly a likelihood that this "upload" is not conscious and you basically just killed yourself. Susan spends a lot of the book arguing that brain uploading may not be the positive immortality it sounds like and that the transhumanist community may be making a critical mistake in thinking so (which in the future could have drastic consequences). Overall very accessible and straightforward read.
3. Inferno, the World at War (A), by Max Hastings
Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11256415-inferno
It's easy to forget how horrifying and bleak World War II was, or any war for that matter. It's also easy to forget how short of a time scale these conflicts operate under, and how many millions of people can die in the span of six months. Inferno is a masterclass work by Max, covering almost the entire WWII conflict over a six-year period. It's dark, sad, and informative. I was looking for a high-level, comprehensive history of the conflict, and Max delivered. It's just a bit sad to get to the end, and to realize that all of this actually happened. The wholesale slaughter of civilians, the unspeakable war crimes, and the industrialized genocide of the Jewish people. It happened, all of it. And if that doesn't shake you to your soul, and fill you with deep distress, you're not human.
4. The Edge of Sentience (A), by Johnathan Birch
Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/215505354-the-edge-of-sentience
The most comprehensive, academically serious work I've come across on one of the most important topics in history. It's hard to overstate how good of a job Johnathan did here, I only wish I had read this cover to cover sooner (although I read many sections previously). My meta-level concern here is that the book is a bit too academic, and the high price will make this pretty much entirely inaccessible to most people. Which is a shame, because a much more condensed version of this could be hugely impactful. Johnathan's ideas will be influential regardless (and he's already a leading voice), but I don't think many people outside of the current sentience community will be motivated to cover-to-cover this easily. But for those of us in this community, I can't imagine a more useful book.
