Review: The Intelligence Explosion: When AI Beats Humans at Everything
When the machines outthink us, will they outmaneuver us? Barrat’s latest is a wake-up call we can’t afford to ignore.
Having had the privilege of previewing James Barrat’s latest work, The Intelligence Explosion (Amazon link, Google Book link), I found it to be a compelling and thought-provoking exploration of the rapidly evolving landscape of artificial intelligence. My previous interviews with Barrat—first in 2013 discussing his seminal book Our Final Invention , and again in 2021 revisiting those themes—provided a foundation for understanding his perspectives. His recent discussion at Future Day 2025 further enriched this context.
The book was a page turner – Barrat’s writing style in this book is both informative and engaging, often laced with a wry sense of humour that brings levity to complex and sometimes alarming topics. His ability to distil intricate AI concepts into accessible narratives is commendable, making the book suitable for both newcomers and seasoned readers in the field.
While my own assessments of AI risks may not align entirely with Barrat’s more cautionary stance, I appreciate the book’s role as a primer on pressing AI safety concerns. It delves into contemporary mitigation strategies and highlights the coordination challenges faced by AI developers and nations striving for safe AI deployment.
Through insightful interviews with AI pioneers, Barrat highlights the unstable trajectory of AI development, showcasing its potential for modest benefits and catastrophic consequences. Insights from AI safety advocates provide a rich and diverse array of perspectives, offering a nuanced perspectives on AI capability control, the field’s current state and its potential trajectories (a lot of them anxiety provoking).
James Barrat devotes a fair amount of pages discussing the critical need for regulatory oversight and global coordination in AI development, while candidly examining the formidable challenges these efforts face. He delves into the realities of race conditions, where nations and corporations vie for AI supremacy, often prioritising rapid advancement over safety considerations. Barrat highlights how market dynamics and profit motives can drive organisations to sideline ethical concerns, leading to a competitive environment where cutting corners becomes tempting, and then the norm. Moreover, he discusses the risk of regulatory capture, where powerful AI entities might exert undue influence over policymakers, potentially skewing regulations in their favour and undermining public interest. Throughout the book, Barrat profiles major players in the AI field, scrutinising their approaches and motivations. By shedding light on these dynamics, he emphasises the urgency of establishing robust, transparent, and globally coordinated frameworks to ensure that AI technologies are developed and deployed responsibly, safeguarding humanity’s future and increasing the likelihood of a beneficial intelligence explosion.
While it touches upon AI values and motivations, I felt there was room for a deeper exploration of how to shape AI values, such as through indirect normativity and motivation selection. However, I recognise that delving into these areas might have expanded the book’s scope beyond its intended narrative.
I highly recommend this book.
