The Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World

by Pedro Domingos

Picture two strands of DNA going for a swim in their private pool, aka a bacterium’s cytoplasm, two billion years ago. They’re pondering a momentous decision. “I’m worried, Diana,” says one. “If we start making multicellular creatures, will they take over?” Fast-forward to the twenty-first century, and DNA is still alive and well. Better than ever, in fact, with an increasing fraction living safely in bipedal organisms comprising trillions of cells. It’s been quite a ride for our tiny double-stranded friends since they made their momentous decision. Humans are their trickiest creation yet; we’ve invented things like contraception that let us have fun without spreading our DNA, and we have—or seem to have—free will. But it’s still DNA that shapes our notions of fun, and we use our free will to pursue pleasure and avoid pain, which, for the most part, still coincides with what’s best for our DNA’s survival. We may yet be DNA’s demise if we choose to transmute ourselves into silicon, but even then, it’s been a great two billion years. The decision we face today is similar: if we start making AIs—vast, interconnected, superhuman, unfathomable AIs—will they take over? Not any more than multicellular organisms took over from genes, vast and unfathomable as we may be to them. AIs are our survival machines, in the same way that we are our genes’.