Abstract

Nick Bostrom is perhaps best known for his 2014 book Superintelligence, which explores the existential threat posed to humans by superintelligent AI. In his new book, Deep Utopia, he shifts gears to explore the existentialist threat that superintelligent AI poses. Suppose that humans successfully navigate the technological, moral, and political challenges that come with advanced AI. The result of such success, according to Bostrom, would be a kind of deep utopia. We would not only live in a post-work, and post-scarcity society (things already covered by shallower conceptions of utopia); we would also live in a “post-instrumental” society where almost anything we might consider doing, including pursuing our own personal enrichment, could be better accomplished by AI. Bostrom’s central concern is how we might find meaning and purpose in such a world. If everything you might consider doing can be done better by machine intelligence, what is there to live for?