Robin Hanson in the “The Age of Em” thinks that robots may one day rule the world.
Many think the first truly smart robots will be brain emulations or “ems.”
Scan a human brain, then run a model with the same connections on a fast computer, and you have a robot brain, but recognizably human.
Train an em to do some job and copy it a million times: An army of workers is at your disposal. When they can be made cheaply, within perhaps a century, ems will displace humans in most jobs.
Applying decades of expertise in physics, computer science, and economics, Hanson uses standard theories to paint a detailed picture of a world dominated by ems.
Ems make us question common assumptions of moral progress, because they reject many of the values we hold dear.
This book shows you just how strange your descendants may be, though ems are no stranger than we would appear. To most ems, it seems good to be an em.
