MIRI is putting out a new edition of Rationality: From AI to Zombies, including the first set of R:AZ print books! Map and Territory (volume 1) and How to Actually Change Your Mind (volume 2) are out today!

 

                 

 

• Map and Territory is:
• $6.50 on Amazon, for the print version.
• Pay-what-you-on Gumroad, for PDF, EPUB, and MOBI versions.

• How to Actually Change Your Mind is:
• $8 on Amazon, for the print version.
• Pay-what-you-on Gumroad, for PDF, EPUB, and MOBI versions (available in the next day).

 

The Rationality: From AI to Zombies compiles Eliezer Yudkowsky’s original Overcoming Bias and Less Wrong sequences, modified to form a more cohesive whole as books.

Map and Territory is the canonical starting point, though we’ve tried to make How to Actually Change Your Mind a good jumping-on point too, since we expect different people to take interest in one book or the other.

The previous edition of Rationality: From AI to Zombies was digital-only, and took the form of a single sprawling ebook. The new version has been revised a fair amount, with larger changes including:

 

• The first sequence in Map and Territory, “Predictably Wrong,” has been substantially reorganized and rewritten, with a goal of making it a much better experience for new readers.

   

• More generally, the books are now more optimized for new readers and less focused on extreme fidelity to Eliezer’s original blog posts, as this was one of the largest requests we got in response to the previous edition of Rationality: From AI to Zombies. Although the book as a whole is mostly unchanged, this represented an update about which option to pick in quite a few textual tradeoffs.

   

• A fair number of essays have been added, removed, or rearranged. The “Against Doublethink” sequence in How to Actually Change Your Mind has been removed entirely, except for one essay (“Singlethink”).

   

• Important links and references are now written out rather than hidden behind Easter egg hyperlinks, so that they’ll show up in print editions too.

   

  Easter egg links are kept around if they’re interesting enough to be worth retaining, but not important enough to deserve a footnote; so there will still be some digital-only content, but the goal is for this to be pretty minor.

   

• A glossary has been added to the back of each book.

 

Over the coming months, We’ll be rolling out the other four volumes of Rationality: From AI to Zombies. To learn more, see the R:AZ landing page.