I listened to "If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies" today.

I think the first two parts of the book are the best available explanation of the basic case for AI misalignment risk for a general audience. I thought the last part was pretty bad, and probably recommend skipping it. Even though the authors fail to address counterarguments that I think are crucial, and as a result I am not persuaded of the book's thesis and think the book neglects to discuss crucial aspects of the situation and makes poor recommendations, I would happily recommend the book to a lay audience and I hope that more people read it.

I can't give an overall assessment of how well this book will achieve its goals. The point of the book is to be well-received by people who don't know much about AI, and I’m not very good at predicting how laypeople [...]

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Outline:

(01:15) Synopsis

(05:21) My big disagreement

(10:53) I tentatively support this book

The original text contained 3 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:
September 17th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/P4xeb3jnFAYDdEEXs/i-enjoyed-most-of-iabed

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.