…in both of these superintelligence animations. You’ve been warned.
Technical storytelling is a reductive process. A distillation. You’ve got to consider all the info you can hold in your tiny human brain, eliminate the noise, and prioritize the core elements. Then reduce THAT version again to get to a working script. That means some things get left out. It’s unavoidable. When you make an explainer, you choose what NOT to include.
That’s what made us decide to produce TWO videos on superintelligence: it’s a massive, complex, multivalent problem, impossible to summarize in a 90-second video. Heck, we could do 50 more videos and still not cover it all. So both of these animations communicate PART of the story, but neither tells the whole story.
THE Unfinished Fable of the Sparrows
Professor Bostrom’s 2014 book Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies is a thorough, sober, measured examination of how superintelligence might emerge, and what that means for the future of humanity. He leaves no stone unturned, so if you want a serious understanding of the topic, you’ve got to read his book.
Since the topic is SO complex, he brilliantly prefaced his (sometimes technical) book with a parable. It likens humanity’s pursuit of strong general AI to some sparrows who think they should raise an owl. The fable’s not the whole story of superintelligence, but it certainly illuminates how foolhardy the pursuit of superintelligence is without FIRST considering the control & motivation problems. We thought The Unfinished Fable of the Sparrows was begging to be made into an animation, so we made one.
Contact sales@parkerharper.com to hire this artist for your animation project.
SuperIntelligence: Will Humans Survive?
DISCLAIMER: WE’RE NOT SCIENTISTS, WE’RE AN ANIMATION STUDIO. This video DRASTICALLY OVERSIMPLIFIES the topic of superintelligence. But it’s a great example of how technical storytelling SHOULD work: help viewers understand the IMPACT of a technical subject, without going too deep into the details. It’s flypaper that grabs viewers and piques their curiosity. And it’s a great animation.
Contact sales@parkerharper.com to hire this artist & writer for your explainer animation.
Help Save Humanity (seriously)
Nick Bostrom is Director of The Future of Humanity Institute. They’re trying to figure out how to make the emergence of superintelligence safer for human beings, and they could probably use some help.
Future of Humanity Institue, Universtiy of Oxford
http://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk
Read More
Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies
http://www.amazon.com/Superintelligence-Dangers-Strategies-Nick-Bostrom/dp/0199678111
The ‘Wait But Why’ blog has two shorter (but still kinda long) blog posts that will give you a better understanding of superintelligence while you’re waiting for your kindle version of Bostrom’s book to download:
http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-1.html
http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-2.html