Artificial Intelligence: the defining technology of our time
Artificial intelligence has moved, within a few short years, from a specialist research topic to a technology that is reshaping the economy, the public conversation, and the geopolitical balance. Large language models, image and video generation, autonomous agents, and accelerating capability gains in reasoning, coding and scientific research are transforming what software can do and, with it, what human work looks like.
The transhumanist tradition has thought about artificial intelligence for decades — long before it became the central technological story of the 2020s. We see AI as one of the most powerful tools humanity has ever built: a technology that, if developed responsibly, could help cure disease, end poverty, dramatically extend healthy human lifespan, accelerate scientific discovery, and unlock forms of abundance previously unimaginable. AI also poses risks proportional to its power — from job displacement and concentration of power to the more speculative but serious concerns about advanced systems whose goals and values diverge from those of humanity.
Our position is neither uncritical enthusiasm nor reflexive opposition. We support the responsible development of AI, robust public investment in AI alignment and safety research, democratic governance of the most powerful systems, and serious preparation of social and economic policy — including universal basic income, education reform, and updated taxation — for the world AI is bringing. The reading list below covers the foundational works of the field, the leading organisations researching AI safety, and resources to follow developments as they unfold.
Online
- Wikipedia: Artificial Intelligence
- Wikipedia: Artificial General Intelligence
- Wikipedia: Superintelligence
- Wikipedia: AI Alignment
- Wikipedia: AI Safety
- Wikipedia: Existential Risk from AI
- Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI) — Berkeley-based non-profit dedicated to foundational mathematical research on AI alignment. One of the earliest organisations focused on the safety of advanced AI systems.
- ControlAI — Non-profit founded in 2023 advocating for an international prohibition on the development of artificial superintelligence. Active in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada and Germany.
- PauseAI — Global grassroots movement, founded in 2023, calling for a pause on training the most powerful AI systems until they can be built safely. Active in more than 15 countries.
- Stanford AI Index — Annual report tracking the state of AI globally across research, capabilities, economy, policy and public opinion. A key reference for policymakers and researchers.
- Centre for the Governance of AI (GovAI) — Oxford-based research institute focused on the policy and governance of advanced AI systems.
- Future of Life Institute — Research and outreach on transformative technologies and existential risks. Organisers of the 2023 open letter calling for a pause on training the most powerful AI systems.
- Center for AI Safety (CAIS) — San Francisco-based research and field-building organisation focused on reducing societal-scale risks from AI.
- Anthropic — AI safety company publishing influential research on interpretability, alignment, and constitutional AI. Maker of Claude.
- Google DeepMind Safety Research — Safety and alignment research from one of the leading AI labs.
- AI Alignment Forum — Technical discussion forum for researchers working on AI alignment.
- LessWrong — Community forum on rationality, AI safety and related topics. Many foundational AI safety ideas were developed and discussed here.
- 80,000 Hours: Preventing an AI-related catastrophe — Comprehensive problem profile arguing that AI safety is among the most important problems of our time.
- AI Impacts — Research project gathering data and analysis on the trajectory and impacts of AI development.
- Effective Altruism Forum: AI Safety — Collection of papers and analyses on AI safety as a global priority.
- Epoch AI — Research organisation investigating the trajectory of AI through data analysis of compute, datasets and model performance.
Books
- If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: The Case Against Superintelligent AI, by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares — 2025 New York Times bestseller by two founding researchers of the AI alignment field, arguing that building artificial superintelligence using current techniques would lead to human extinction. Additional resources.
- Superalignment: The Three Approaches to the AI Alignment Problem, by Alex M. Vikoulov — 2026 work by the Russian-American transhumanist futurist proposing three converging strategies — control-based, ethical-emotional, and merge-based alignment — as a roadmap for the emergence of beneficial artificial superintelligence.
- Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, by Nick Bostrom — The foundational 2014 work that brought the discussion of advanced AI risks into the mainstream. Argued that we should treat the development of superintelligent AI as one of humanity’s most consequential challenges.
- Human Compatible: AI and the Problem of Control, by Stuart Russell — Co-author of the standard AI textbook proposes a new approach to AI design centred on machines that defer to human preferences rather than pursue fixed objectives.
- Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, by Max Tegmark — Accessible introduction to the implications of advanced AI for humanity’s long-term future, by the physicist and Future of Life Institute co-founder.
- The Alignment Problem: How Can Machines Learn Human Values?, by Brian Christian — Journalistic deep-dive into the technical and philosophical challenges of getting AI systems to behave in line with human values.
- The Coming Wave: AI, Power and the 21st Century’s Greatest Dilemma, by Mustafa Suleyman — The co-founder of DeepMind and CEO of Microsoft AI on the convergence of AI and synthetic biology and the governance challenges they pose.
- How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed, by Ray Kurzweil — Theory of the neocortex and what it implies for building human-level intelligence in machines.
- Genius Makers: The Mavericks Who Brought AI to Google, Facebook, and the World, by Cade Metz — History of the deep learning revolution and the researchers who made it happen.
- Robot Ethics: The Ethical and Social Implications of Robotics, edited by Patrick Lin, Keith Abney and George A. Bekey — Academic collection on the ethics of robotic systems.
- Robot Ethics 2.0: From Autonomous Cars to Artificial Intelligence, edited by Patrick Lin, Keith Abney and Ryan Jenkins — Updated 2017 successor covering autonomous vehicles, lethal autonomous weapons, AI ethics and emerging robotic applications.
- The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity, by Toby Ord — Oxford philosopher’s 2020 case that this century is uniquely critical for humanity’s long-term future, with AI among the most serious risks analysed.
- Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity, by Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson — Nobel Prize-winning economist and co-author argue that the benefits of AI will not automatically be shared broadly, and that deliberate policy choices are required.