"'This is the most important conversation of our time, and Tegmark's thought-provoking book will help you join it' Stephen Hawking THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER. DAILY TELEGRAPH AND THE TIMES BOOKS OF THE YEAR SELECTED AS ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVOURITE BOOKS OF 2018 AI is the future - but what will that future look like? Will superhuman intelligence be our slave, or become our god? Taking us to the heart of the latest thinking about AI, Max Tegmark, the MIT professor whose work has helped mainstream research on how to keep AI beneficial, separates myths from reality, utopias from dystopias, to explore the next phase of our existence. How can we grow our prosperity through automation, without leaving people lacking income or purpose? How can we ensure that future AI systems do what we want without crashing, malfunctioning or getting hacked? Should we fear an arms race in lethal autonomous weapons? Will AI help life flourish as never before, or will machines eventually outsmart us at all tasks, and even, perhaps, replace us altogether? 'This is a rich and visionary book and everyone should read it' The Times"