Top critical review
2.0 out of 5 starsSadly, this book is not worth buying
Reviewed in the United States on June 30, 2024
I wish that I could report that this was a good book. Instead, I regret the time that I put into reading it. "Superintelligence" was worth reading, especially in 2014. "Deep Utopia" is not so in 2024.
Yes, there are a few paragraphs here and there that are worth reading. There's a bit of dialogue that is clever and a bit more that's amusing. The structure around a series of lectures might have worked out with some more refining of the concept --- I think that Bertrand Russell, for instance, did some of this in his autobiography, but Russell's use of his own correspondence to buttress that linear approach gave it a stronger foundation than Bostrom's attempt.
But the book overwhelmingly is a loss of one's time. The author did not manage to pull off a Hofstadterian feat like "Godel, Escher, and Bach", where a deeply playful approach worked out. He didn't even manage to pull off the somewhat lighter touch that Steven Pinker can bring to bear (and Pinker's interesting ability to flip his own argument around, at least occasionally, with grace and skill.)
Bostrom is a good writer; indeed, I think that prose style in "Deep Utopia" was more approachable than that of "Superintelligence". My own guess is that what Bostrom needed was a good editor to help navigate this project, one willing to challenge the author. Instead, too much material that should have not made it into this volume was left there. Material that should have been given a thorough trimming was allowed to run on.