Life 3.0 — Max Tegmark (2017)

Life 3.0 offers the most even-handed and technically grounded tour of the AI future available. Max Tegmark, an MIT physicist, maps a dozen plausible scenarios for artificial general intelligence, from utopian abundance to catastrophic takeover, assigning each a probability derived from current research timelines. His central claim—that humanity's choices in the next 20 years will determine which future we inhabit—is supported by a concrete 70% estimate that AGI will arrive by 2100. It is more balanced than the alarmist #5 The Shallows, yet more readable than Tegmark's earlier academic work. The book’s unique strength is its refusal to cherry-pick evidence, making it the essential primer for anyone confused by the AI debate.