The Alignment Problem

This book by Brian Christian came up once on Diary of a CEO in the episodes we index. That mention was a genuine on-air recommendation, not just a passing reference. The people who brought it up: Stuart Russell. Every occurrence below links to the episode page and to the exact second it was said on YouTube.

"A jaw-dropping exploration of everything that goes wrong when we build AI systems-and the movement to fix them. Today's "machine-learning" systems, trained by data, are so effective that we've invited them to see and hear for us-and to make decisions on our behalf. But alarm bells are ringing. Systems cull résumés until, years later, we discover that they have inherent gender biases. Algorithms decide bail and parole-and appear to assess black and white defendants differently. We can no longer assume that our mortgage application, or even our medical tests, will be seen by human eyes.