I would vote against any kind of chess metaphor - when I think of chess-based AI I think of faster CPU power giving faster searches of possible solutions, rather than the impression of "true" intelligence (avoiding the definition of what that actually is for now).
Only idea I had was the image you see a lot of developing humans - like the chain of apes to humans, but with the robot at the end. That could be played straight with the robot facing right with the implication of replacing the previous generations, or played more sinisterly with the robot turned back to look at the last human with a menacing or indifferent expression. Alternatively, have several robot generations getting more unrecognisable but include a timeline linked to the previous generations to show the speed new generations are developing. But it's maybe been overused for humour at this point.
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?