Quercus buys Barat’s book on AI and ‘the end of the human era’

James Barrat’s Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era has gone to Quercus, 10 years after its original publication in the US.

Managing director Jon Butler acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from William Clark at William Clark Associates. After its initial release the book, which Quercus will publish for the first time in the UK on 20th July 2023, was named by Elon Musk as one of the five books everyone should read about the future.

The publisher says: “Now, as the ‘intelligence explosion’ that Barrat predicted rips through our culture, Quercus is racing the book out with a brand-new preface from the author that brings the context right up to date, opening with the resignation of Geoffrey Hinton – ‘the godfather of AI’ – from Google three weeks ago.

“Exploring the technology, ethics, history and future perils of the heedless pursuit of advanced AI, Barrat’s wake-up call is more urgent than ever. Until now, human intelligence has had no rival. Can we coexist with beings whose intelligence dwarfs our own? And will they allow us to?”

Butler said: “It was pure serendipity – or perhaps a rogue algorithm? – that led me to read an American copy of James’s extraordinary book just a few short weeks ago, and instantly track down the rights. Every word of it rings as true as when he wrote it in 2013; indeed more so, because suddenly, that future is here, just as he said it would be. I can’t say it any better than Jaan Tallinn, co-founder of Skype, in his review of the original edition: ‘I wish it was science fiction, but I know it’s not’.”

Barrat said: “Our Final Invention’s timeless message could be ripped from today’s headlines: ’A few tech companies are holding humanities’ fate hostage by disseminating AI that will soon be able to improve its own intelligence until it vastly eclipses ours. Meanwhile we have no strategy for safely coexisting with superintelligent machines’. Must this be the ignoble end of life on earth?”