Science Fiction as Scenario Planning: Red Heart by Max Harms
How do we stress-test our future against the rise of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)? While traditional policy papers offer metrics, speculative fiction gives us a sandbox to explore the messy, human, and geopolitical realities of tomorrow.
We invite you to an exclusive book reading and interactive discussion centered on Red Heart by AI alignment researcher and author Max Harms.
Event Details:
Date: Wednesday September 30
Time: 12:00 pm
Location: Virtual
RSVP: https://luma.com/mudehbp8
About the Author Max Harms
He is a researcher at the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI). He has written that he "intend[s] to keep working there until the world is safe from unfriendly AI." He conducts closed-research, which unfortunately means his work is not publicly accessible.
About the book Red Heart
Her meets Three Body Problem in this speculative thriller from an important voice in AI alignment research.
Years after leaving his homeland, Chen Bai returns to China with a mission: infiltrate the government’s top-secret AI lab and siphon its research to the CIA. Cloaked in the guise of an AI alignment expert, Bai journeys into the remote mountains of Guizhou to work within the lab. There he discovers an individual with the potential to shatter societies: her name is Yunna, and she’s the world’s first artificial general intelligence.
Rather than being the terrible weapon he expected, Yunna’s capabilities seem to promise a harmonious future for humanity. Yet as Bai grows closer to the AI, he worries both the Chinese and Americans view her as a mere tool, rather than an entity with an unprecedented ability to bring peace.
Caught in a dangerous web of conflicting ideologies, Bai must decide where his loyalties lie: with the homeland that raised him, the Westerners who offer him revenge, or with the machine who promises to heal both his soul and society.