Who is Telling the A.I. Story?
The Sane
"Commons"
Sense Answer
Elite tech giants like Sam Altman, Marc Andreessen, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg are driving the arms race to develop Artificially Intelligent machines.
Why are they also hedging their bets by admitting they are unsure how these machines work? And that there is a real possibility that once the machines advance past a certain point, they'll enslave or destroy humanity?
Who can be held accountable and act responsibly?
Can we trust the government to step in and do the right thing?
The problem is no one knows what the right thing is.
If we can't trust the Marketplace "experts"...
And we can't trust the State "experts"...
We must return and trust in the "Commons"—hard-working, caring, and sensible people like you to look at the A.I. predicament with fresh eyes.
Mentoring the Machines cuts through the noisy and irresponsible Internet come-ons and political propaganda to provide clear, "commons-sense" approaches to A.I. 's complex issues. It urges us to resist surrendering our agency to the whims of the marketplace or the centralized power of the State.
Instead, we need to break their framing of the problem and assert a first principle approach to aligning the probable emergence of a new life form with the beings responsible for their creation.
Welcome to the every person's map for the coming brave new world.
Early Access Offer
Mentoring the Machines will be published December 15, 2023
However, we have two ways for you to get early access to the book!
OPTION 1:
SIGNED HARDCOVER
Preorder the Limited Edition Hardcover of Mentoring the Machines and you will receive:
-
Early access to all four parts of the book delivered monthly in ebook format:
- Part One: Orientation - Immediately when you order
- Part Two: Origins - Immediately when you order.
- Part Three: Thresholds - March 5
- Part Four: Alignment - April 2
- Shareable ebook edition of full book.
- Limited edition hardcover (only 2000 printed)
- Signed by both John Vervaeke and Shawn Coyne.
- Free shipping (inside the United States).
- Shipped May 21.
$50
OPTION 2:
PAPERBACK
Preorder the Paperback Edition of Mentoring the Machines and you will receive:
-
Early access to all four parts of the book delivered monthly in ebook format:
- Part One: Orientation - Immediately when you order
- Part Two: Origins - Immediately when you order
- Part Three: Thresholds - March 5
- Part Four: Alignment - April 2
- Paperback edition.
-
Shipped May 21
$20
About the Authors
John Vervaeke
John is an award-winning professor at the University of Toronto in the departments of psychology, cognitive science, and Buddhist psychology. He currently teaches courses in the psychology department on thinking and reasoning with an emphasis on insight problem-solving, cognitive development with a focus on the dynamical nature of development, and higher cognitive processes with an emphasis on intelligence, rationality, mindfulness, and the psychology of wisdom. He is the director of the cognitive science program where he also teaches courses on the introduction to cognitive science and the cognitive science of consciousness wherein he emphasizes 4E (embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended) models of cognition and consciousness. In addition, he taught a course in the Buddhism, psychology, and mental health program on Buddhism and cognitive science for fifteen years. He is the director of the Consciousness and the Wisdom Studies Laboratory. He has won and been nominated for several teaching awards including the 2001 Students’ Administrative Council and Association of Part-Time Undergraduate Students Teaching Award for the Humanities, and the 2012 Ranjini Ghosh Excellence in Teaching Award. He has published articles on relevance realization, general intelligence, mindfulness, flow, metaphor, and wisdom. He is the first author of the book Zombies in Western Culture: A Twenty-First Century Crisis, which integrates psychology and cognitive science to address the meaning crisis in Western society. He is the author and presenter of the YouTube series, “Awakening from the Meaning Crisis,” “After Socrates” and the host of “Voices with Vervaeke.”
Shawn Coyne
Shawn Coyne is a writer, editor, and publishing professional with over 30 years of experience. He has analyzed, acquired, edited, written, marketed, represented, or published 374 books with many dozens of bestsellers across all genres, and generated over $150,000,000 of revenue. He graduated in 1986 with a degree in Biology from Harvard College, with a distinction of Magna Cum Laude for his thesis laboratory research work at the Charles A. Dana Laboratory of Toxicology at the Harvard School of Public Health. After Coyne left the laboratory, his findings were acknowledged and served as the inspiration for Mandana Sassanfar and Leona Samson’s Identification and Preliminary Characterization of an 06-Methylguanine DNA Repair Methyltransferase in the Yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae publication in the venerable The Journal of Biological Chemistry (Vol. 265, No. 1, Issue of January 5, pp. 20-25, 1990). In 1991, early in his publishing career, Coyne began an independent investigation into the structure, function and organization of narrative, which he has since coined Simulation Synthesis Theory. His synoptic integration of Aristotle’s Poetics, Freytag’s The Technique of the Drama, Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces, McKee’s Story, among many other story structure investigations with contemporary cognitive science, quantum information theory, cybernetics, evolutionary theory, behavioral psychology, Peircean and Jamesian pragmatism, Jungian depth psychology, Theologian and Philosopher Paul Tillich's conception of "ultimate concern," and fighter pilot John Boyd’s OODA loop serves as philosophical, scientific and spiritual foundations for his teaching. In 2015, he created Story Grid Methodology to begin teaching and further developing Simulation Synthesis Theory. Since then he has given lectures on the origin of story, the integration of storytelling and science, and the necessity of telling complex stories to thousands of students all over the world. In addition to The Story Grid and Mentoring the Machines, he’s authored, coauthored or ghost-written numerous bestselling nonfiction and fiction titles. His most recent lecture series, “Genre Blueprint” applies his Simulation Synthesis Theory to popular works such as The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien and The Matrix by Lara and Lana Wachowski.
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