Episode · The Tucker Carlson Show · 2024-08-01
Books mentioned on Amjad Masad: The Cults of Silicon Valley, Woke AI, and Tech Billionaires Turning to Trump
Tech entrepreneur Amjad Masad joins Tucker for the deepest and most interesting explanation of AI you’ll ever see. (00:00) Artificial Intelligence (10:00) Bitcoin (22:30) The Extropians Cult (31:15) Transhumanism (42:52) Are Machines Capable of Thinking?
Amjad Masad recommended Program Or be Programmed by Douglas Rushkoff and The Emperor's New Mind by Roger Penrose, and discussed Principia Mathematica by Alfred North Whitehead and others, Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom, Who We Are and How We Got Here by David Reich, and How We Got Here by David Frum. Tucker Carlson discussed The Unabomber's Manifesto: Industrial Society and Its Future by Ted Kaczynski.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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Program Or be Programmed
Program or Be Programmed by Douglas Rushkoff is a critical look at digital technology that argues individuals must understand how to code and control software or risk being manipulated by algorithms and digital platforms.
Recommended“There's a book by dog. Not Hofstadter, Rushkoff, Douglas Rushkoff. It's called Program or Be Programed.”
Where to get it
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Principia Mathematica
Principia Mathematica by Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell is a massive, multi-volume foundational work in mathematical logic that famously attempted to prove the logical basis of mathematics, including taking hundreds of pages to formally demonstrate that one plus one equals two.
Discussed“So, you know, you go back, you know, Bertrand Russell wrote a book about history, philosophy and history of mathematics and like, you know, going back to the ancients and, Pythagoras and all these things.”
Where to get it
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The Unabomber's Manifesto: Industrial Society and Its Future
The Unabomber's Manifesto: Industrial Society and Its Future by Ted Kaczynski is a controversial ideological text criticizing modern technology, industrialization, and the loss of human freedom.
Discussed“you know, I'm, I'm really interested in, Ted Kosinski's writings. His two books that he wrote, obviously, is to say ritually, I'm totally opposed to letter bombs or violence of any kind.”
Where to get it
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Superintelligence
Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom is a foundational book exploring the future of artificial intelligence and the existential risks posed by the creation of superintelligent systems.
Discussed“So Elon. You know, famously read a lot of Nick Bostrom is, as I can have an adjacent figure to the rationality community.”
Where to get it
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The Emperor's New Mind
Roger Penrose's influential work explores the intersections of physics, consciousness, and the philosophy of mind, famously challenging the notion that human brains operate merely like computers.
Recommended“His name is, sir, Roger Penrose. I love how the British kind of give the sir title. Someone who's accomplished. The. He wrote this book called The Emperor's New Mind.”
Where to get it
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Who We Are and How We Got Here
Discussed“David Reich wrote this book. It's called, I think, Who We Are, where We came from.”
Where to get it
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How We Got Here
Discussed“David Reich wrote this book. It's called, I think, Who We Are, where We came from.”
Where to get it
