More Everything Forever

Reviews / Votes

An important book as well as a good one. A really significant contribution to our discussion of the future . . . Becker's book is very entertaining as it exposes how the emperor has no clothes -- Kim Stanley Robinson, author of THE MINISTRY FOR THE FUTURE With a wild and utterly engaging narrative, Becker gives us a refreshing reality check on the fantasies of billionaires, futurists and utilitarian philosophers who are plotting to "optimize" the future of humanity. A fascinating expose -- Melanie Mitchell, author of ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: A GUIDE FOR THINKING HUMANS I love this book. Becker has become our greatest prophet of doom -- Errol Morris, documentary filmmaker and author of THE ASHTRAY Our world has fallen into the clutches of billionaires who mistake dystopian science-fiction stories for suggestions, rather than warnings. Speaking in my capacity as a dystopian science-fiction writer, I can confirm that this isn't merely very stupid, it's also very, very bad -- Cory Doctorow, author of RED TEAM BLUES and LITTLE BROTHER Disconcerting . . . More Everything Forever is a disturbing and important book -- New Scientist Smart and wonderfully readable . . . Amid [Becker's] sharp criticisms of the tech figures he writes about is a resolute call for compassion. He encourages us not to get hung up on galaxies far, far away but to pay more attention to our own fragile planet and the frail humans around us -- New York Times Becker subjects Silicon Valley's ideology to some much-needed critical scrutiny, poking holes in - and a decent amount of fun at - the outlandish ideas that so many tech billionaires take as gospel. In so doing, he champions reality while also exposing the dangers of letting the tech billionaires push us toward a future that could never actually exist * Rolling Stone * With admirable clarity and patience, Becker dismantles the fantasies one by one: the AI apocalypse that obscures the real and immediate problems the algorithms are causing, concerning bias, misinformation and energy consumption; the absurd notion of "mind uploading" and the transcendental Singularity that will grant us immortality in a digital nirvana ("All of humanity, running on a computer, until the end of time"); the pipe dream of creating a civilization of billions on airless, frigid, radiation-strafed Mars . . . Writing More Everything Forever took guts -- Philip Ball * TLS * A much-needed reality check . . . A valuable meditation on the questionable stories we tell about progress, salvation, and ourselves * The Atlantic *