What we need now are suggestions for a book cover design. AI is hard to depict without falling back on cliches, such as a brain image mixed with computer circuitry, a humanoid robot, HAL, an imitation of Creation of Adam with human and robot fingers touching, or an imitation of March of Progress with an AI at the far right.
I like to point out that a several studies on design fixation indicate that describing solutions that you don't want but seem relevenat to the problem can be counterproductive. Also, the postive examples coming before
We think we want something kinda dramatic, rather than cartoony, but less epic and unbelievable than the Facing the Intelligence Explosion cover.
seems like a case of failing to hold off proposing solutions.
We got a "hold off proposing solutions" comment on the "book title brainstorming" post, too. But remember, we discussed the general issues quite a bit internally before proposing solutions; LW just isn't seeing that part of the planning.
Thanks to everyone who brainstormed possible titles for MIRI’s upcoming ebook on machine intelligence. Our leading contender for the book title is Smarter than Us: The Rise of Machine Intelligence.
What we need now are suggestions for a book cover design. AI is hard to depict without falling back on cliches, such as a brain image mixed with computer circuitry, a humanoid robot, HAL, an imitation of Creation of Adam with human and robot fingers touching, or an imitation of March of Progress with an AI at the far right.
A few ideas/examples:
Something that conveys ‘AI’ in the middle (a computer screen? a server tower?) connected by arrow/wires/something to various ‘skills/actions/influences’, like giving a speech, flying unmanned spacecraft, doing science, predicting the stock market, etc., in an attempt to convey the diverse superpowers of a machine intelligence.
A more minimalist text-only cover.
A fairly minimal cover with just an ominous-looking server rack in the middle, with a few blinking lights and submerged in darkness around it. A bit like this cover.
Similar to the above, except a server farm along the bottom fading into the background, with a frame composition similar to this.
A darkened, machine-gunned room with a laptop sitting alone on a desk, displaying the text of the title on the screen. (This is the scene from the first chapter, about a Terminator who encounters an unthreatening-looking laptop which ends up being way more powerful and dangerous than the Terminator because it is more intelligent.)
Alex Vermeer sketched the first four of these ideas:
Some general inspiration may be found here.
We think we want something kinda dramatic, rather than cartoony, but less epic and unbelievable than the Facing the Intelligence Explosion cover.
Thoughts?